Abhishek Verma: From defence to cola, film business

New Delhi: Controversial arms dealer Abhishek Verma has said he was getting into the cola and food business by bringing a Lithuanian brand to the country under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, besides tapping into Bollywood by starting his own distribution network.

Out on bail after spending four years in jail as an under trial in a total of eight cases registered against him and his Romanian-origin wife, Verma claims he has exited the defence sector completely having burnt his fingers.

“We are entering the commodity as well as the food sector. We have taken a conscious decision that we will not like to do anything with the government, especially in the defence sector. We are bringing a cola brand in India, besides certain verticals of food products,” Verma said here.

Verma plans to launch three versions of Olialia Cola, including a spicy cardamom flavour, by summer of next year. Besides, he is planning to manufacture ready-to-eat food under the same brand name. He plans 32 varieties of vegetarian food and about 18 varieties of non-veg food. When he was told that investigative agencies and others connected to the defence sector feels that he was diverting the money made in defence sector to his new ventures, Verma, as expected, claimed he had never made any money in the sector.

“With regards to the defence sector, those are merely allegations. We bid for certain defence projects. We were unsuccessful and we came out. We exited the sector. We came out. We made our money in telecom. There is no harm in diversification,” he said, adding that one should also remember that he was not an upstart and was born into a “privileged family”. “We have money from our family. It is money from family, money from telecom and some equity from our joint venture partners,” he said.