- Thursday, May 09, 2024
The Reliance Industries chairman made the announcement at the seventh Bengal Global Business Summit in Kolkata on November 21.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA’S Reliance Industries, led by the country’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, will invest Rs 200 billion (£2.2 billion) in the eastern state of West Bengal over next three years to boost its businesses in telecom, retail and energy sectors.
Ambani himself said this on Tuesday (21).
In a speech at the Bengal Global Business Summit in state capital Kolkata, the 66-year-old tycoon said after having invested nearly Rs 450 billion in the state, Reliance would be making additional investments for a quick rollout of its 5G network, expanding its retail stores and for establishing compressed biogas plants.
Earlier, Ambani inaugurated the seventh edition of the summit with Mamata Banerjee, Bengal’s chief minister and head of its ruling Trinamool Congress.
According to the Reliance chairman, the company’s 5G network has covered nearly 99 per cent of Bengal’s population, enabling the use of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and other disruptive technologies to propel its economy forward.
The investment plans also come as a boost for Banerjee ahead of next year’s general elections. Banerjee, a firebrand leader and a fierce critic of prime minister Narendra Modi, is often accused by the opposition and a section of the state’s population of driving out the Tatas who wanted to set up a small-car factory in the state in 2008. The Left was in power in the state then.
Reliance has been investing in Bengal, which was once one of India’s most industrialised states, over the past five years to grow its retail network and warehouses besides connecting with small merchants.
