Industrialist Mukesh Ambani on Monday unveiled a road map to take the growth of his diversified conglomerate to new heights. These include plans by the recently demerged financial services unit of Reliance Industries to enter the insurance business, plans by telecom unit Jio to launch ‘wireless broadband’ services for homes.
Investment in energy projects will continue
With this Reliance Industries Ltd. Will continue to invest in clean energy projects. This includes setting up 100 CBG (compressed biogas) plants to convert stubble and other agricultural residues into gas. This will fuel the power plants along with the vehicles. This will help offset emissions from the company’s traditional fossil fuel-based business. The major source of pollution in northern parts of the country in winter is stubble burning.
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What does Ambani say?
Chairman of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani Addressing the company’s annual general meeting (AGM), also said that both his sons…Akash and Anant and daughter…Isha will join the company’s board of directors as part of the succession plan. Ambani will continue as the chairman of the company for the next five years after his current term ends on April 19, 2024.
He added that Reliance Retail continues to be the largest retailer in the country with offerings ranging from groceries to sophisticated fashion. After raising $1 billion from Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Reliance Retail is attracting other top investors. “Many leading global strategic and financial investors have shown interest in Reliance Retail,” Ambani said. However, he did not give any detailed information about this. He said in 2019 that the group plans to list the retail business within five years. However, Ambani has not said anything about his listing.
What are the plans regarding JFS
Talking about the recently listed Jio Financial Services (ZFS), Ambani said that JFS is the world’s most capitalized start-up financial services platform with a net worth of Rs 1,20,000 crore. This is Reliance’s fourth business after O-2-C (petroleum and chemical), telecom and retail.
ZFS has announced a joint venture with BlackRock for mutual fund business. He said, “JFS will enter the insurance sector. The company will offer life insurance, general and health insurance products in a simple yet smart way.” About Jio, Ambani said that Jio has acquired more than 450 million customers in the seven years since its launch. Data (Internet) usage per user has gone above 25 GB per month.
He said its 5G service now covers more than 96 percent of cities and aims to reach the entire country by December. It is moving in this direction. With this, it has become the fastest company anywhere in the world to launch 5G services at this scale. Ambani also talked about the recently launched Jio Bharat. It aims to reach 250 million feature phone users.
The company has launched a 4G phone for Rs 999. It offers ‘live TV streaming’, video and music playback, digital photography and UPI payments. Jio Fiber, the company’s optical fiber-based home broadband service, has crossed 10 million subscribers. Ambani said, “More than one crore locations are connected to our optical fiber service Jio Fiber. Even now there are millions of campuses where it is difficult to provide wire connectivity. Jio Air Fiber will alleviate this problem. It will be launched on September 19 i.e. ‘Ganesh Chaturthi’.” On the oil and gas business, he said the company’s joint venture with BP is to produce 30 million cubic meters of gas per day from their KG-D6 fields in the Gulf. of Bengal. is on its way. This is one third of the country’s total gas production.
Focus on oil refining and petrochemical business
Ambani said the company aims to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2035 with its oil refining and petrochemicals businesses. He said that Reliance will set up four large-scale factories spread over 5,000 acres for solar panels, batteries for energy storage, electrolyzers for hydrogen production and fuel cell manufacturing at its Jamnagar refinery complex in Gujarat at Rs. 75,000 crore is being invested. The company also aims to install at least 100 GW (1 GW equals 1,000 MW) of solar power by 2030.
“We are on the way to create a new energy ecosystem with the creation of solar, wind, battery, hydrogen and bio-energy platforms,” Ambani said. He said that Reliance is also entering the wind power sector. Ambani also informed about the plan to convert agricultural residues into gas. He said the company would set up 100 CBG plants in the next five years to convert agricultural waste into gas.