Bajaj Auto's Rahul Bajaj, Sunil Mittal of Bharti and Oil and Natural Gas Corp's Subir Raha are among the 20 finalists announced by Ernst and Young for the E&Y Entreprenuer of the Year award.

The winner, to be announced on November 1 in New Delhi, will represent India at the E&Y World Entrepreneur of the Year awards 2005 at Monte Carlo, a E&Y statement said on Monday.

Others who have made it to the final list include Onkar S Kanwar of Apollo Tyres, Ashish Dhawan of Chrys Capital, Deccan Aviation's G R Gopinath, Proshanto Banerjee of Gas Authority of India, M S Ramachandran of Indian Oil Corp, Narotam Sekhsaria of Gujarat Ambuja Cements, Habil F Khorakiwala of Wockhardt and Dilip Sanghvi from Sun Pharma.

"The nomination and selection process is rigorous for this fully integrated World's Business award. The process has evolved over the last about two decades and is now standardised across 50 countries," E&Y's national director and country leader for the EOY program V V Ranganathan said.