The day-long suspense over the winner of the ₹12 crore Onam bumper lottery came to an end after K Jayapalan, a native of Kochi and an auto-driver by profession, submitted the winning ticket in a bank negating the claim of another fortune hunter.
The result was announced on Sunday and lottery ticket No TE 645465 got the first prize of ₹12 crore. Soon after the results got public, the process of lottery draw was live on many channels, a native of Wayanad who is working in Dubai as a cook claimed himself to be the winner. He said that he transferred money for two lottery tickets ( ₹600) to a friend and one of them fetched the bumper prize. However, his claim was found to be a farce after the real winner emerged.
“I regularly take lottery tickets from my meagre income. This time along with Onam bumper, priced ₹300, I bought 10 daily tickets also priced at ₹40 each. I came to know about the prize only in the morning and deposited the winning ticket in my bank,” said Jayapalan. He said he was staying in a rented house with his family and he was also looking after two of his sisters. He said his first priority is owning a house. He said he had purchased the winning ticket on September 10 after he got some good income on that day.
The lottery department said after deducting the agent’s commission and tax the recipient will be getting ₹7.39 crore. The department earned ₹127 crore through the sale of the lottery and the net profit from this particular ticket was ₹30.55 crore. Lottery tickets and liquor are major non-tax revenue earners for the state. On average 90 lakh tickets are sold daily and at least one lakh vendors are there. For a normal ticket priced at ₹40, a seller gets a commission of ₹seven per ticket. It provides succour to many differently-abled and economically weaker sections.
