After working as a civil engineer for a few years, Rohtas Goel had amassed enough to buy a scooter for 12,000 rupees (£150). With leftover savings of 10,000 rupees, he set up a business doing odd jobs around factories outside Delhi. Twenty years later, he is worth $1.8 billion (£880 million) after he floated 10 per cent of Omaxe, his construction company.

Mr Goel, 45, is one of India’s new dollar billionaires, created by unprecedented economic growth and a new-found optimism that has fuelled a record-breaking run on the Bombay stock market.

Since diversifying from engineering to the construction of offices and houses in 2001, Omaxe has delivered ten projects, covering about 5.13 million sq ft, and is developing more than 140 million sq ft of property across 30 towns in nine states. Omaxe has 52 projects under development, including 16 integrated townships, 14 shopping centres and a hotel. In the last financial year, the company generated revenues of 14.4 billion rupees and pretax profits of 3.2 billion rupees.

Mr Goel, Omaxe’s chairman, who is married with three children and lives in Delhi, has interests in addition to his business, including being appointed Honorary Consul for Congo-Brazzaville in India.

He plays down his group’s rising star on the stock market. “It’s nothing. This is just the beginning of my story. A lot of things need to be done in my company and also in India,” he said. “India is not only a developing country, it is a transforming nation and there will be great business opportunities in infrastructure. The next ten years are golden years for India.”

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