A month ago a Hyderabad man named Anil Kumar Bolla made headlines when he won the UAE Lottery. Now 16 other Indian expats hailing from Kerala and working in Saudi Arabia joined hands to win the latest jackpot at Big Ticket Abu Dhabi.
Indian expat Rajan P.V. and 15 of his co-workers bought the ticket number 282824 together on November 9 and will share the Dh 25 million (around Rs 61.23 crore) fortunes equally among themselves.
The December jackpot winner's ticket was pulled out by the winner of the previous month's jackpot, Saravanan Venkatachalam. He is an Indian expat residing in Abu Dhabi.
Who is Rajan P.V.?
Rajan P.V. has his roots in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala. The 52-year-old has spent 30 years of his life in Saudi Arabia. He is a control supervisor at an oil rig in Al Khobar, a Saudi city on the coast of Persian Gulf.
Rajan has been taking part in the Big Ticket draw every month for the past 13 years along with 15 of his co-workers. Each of them would chip in Dh 63 (around Rs 1,540). Sometimes they get extra tickets as part of promotions and it was one such ticket that won them the Dh 25 million fortune.
Rajan says he spent around Dh 10,000 (Rs 2.45 lakh) since he started buying the tickets. In total, the group has spent around Dh 1,60,000 (Rs 39.2 lakh) so far.
He said they will each share a part of the win to charity. Rajan is planning to use rest of his money on his family's future needs, including his children's education.
