RIL Plans to Invest Rs. 5,000 Crore in Bengal
Reliance Industries Ltd Chairman Mukesh Ambani recently announced Rs. 5,000 crore investment in expanding telecom as well as petro-retail businesses in West Bengal. He also said that his company is working with multiple partners in order to explore the possibility of setting up a manufacturing facility for set-top boxes as well as mobile phones.
While speaking at the Bengal Global Business Summit, Mr Ambani had also given compliments to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee saying that under her leadership “West Bengal is becoming Best Bengal!”
Mr Ambani said his company had initially committed an investment of Rs. 4,500 crore in West Bengal but he has ended up investing Rs. 15,000 crore.
“Didi, we could make this large investment only because you have created a friendly climate and an enabling policy infrastructure,” he said.
Most of the investment has been made in creating 4G high-speed mobile as well as internet network for Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries Ltd.
“We are committing to invest another Rs. 5,000 crore in Jio and the entire digital eco-system, retail and retro-retail in the next few years,” he said.
Also, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) will be working with “multiple partners to explore setting up next generation state-of-the-art electronics manufacturing facilities and make West Bengal the hub for innovation and hi-tech technologies for consumer devices such as mobile phones, set-top boxes, and other devices”, he said.
Jio has more than 1.2 crore customers in West Bengal and they played an important role in its growth, Mr Ambani said.
He also said that Jio will be reaching 100 per cent of state population before the end of 2018.
Reliance is also setting up Digital Service Centres across India in order to bring G2C or Government to Citizen services within easy reach of every citizen, especially in the rural hinterland.
“We will start with five districts in the state on a pilot basis and on an immediate basis. Later, we will scale them to all districts of Bengal,” he said.
Mr. Ambani said that Bengal has bid farewell to the slow growth rate of the past and the state is today the fourth largest economy in the country, growing at 15.64%, which is much higher than the national average.
“Investments in infrastructure have been unprecedented. A global think-tank ranked Kolkata second among the Indian metros on overall economic performance, even ahead of Mumbai,” he said. “Today, the state is famous for the ease of doing business! A miracle has happened.”
