Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev's Patanjali is one of the biggest brands in India now and has shown signs of growing even bigger.

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But it appears that the benefits of the sales worth Rs 10,561 crore in the last financial year is not reaching the people who made it possible.

According to former CEO of Patanjali, SK Patra, the company believes its employees are doing a 'seva' (voluntary service) and can work without being paid.

"Patanjali pay very little to the people who work for them. Babaji (Baba Ramdev) calls it ‘seva’. For instance, I was doing two jobs there — at Patanjali Ayurved and Patanjali Food Park. They had promised to pay for both. But he would announce to everyone that 'Patraji has come to do seva. Right now he is drawing salary, but soon, he won’t even take that…" Patra told Mint.

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Patra, an IT and IIM alumnus said he did not want to do 'seva' as Ramdev claimed and demanded money for the work he was doing.

"I used to respond, “No, I want my money.”... I said I don’t need it for myself. I have a family. I need money for my family, to support them and my relatives. Then Babaji relented and gave me a salary for one of the two jobs that I was performing. But basically his argument was — I have to offer free seva to his host of companies."

Patra said he left the company due to the differences in their words and actions.

"I was also seeing the distance between their words and their actions and it troubled me. Eventually, it became too much. So I left."