Reliance commits Rs 10,000 crore fresh investment boost for Bengal

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Thursday said the group has firmed up to Rs 10,000 crore of investments in West Bengal, which is already under implementation. "In 2016, when I first attended the Bengal Global Business Summit, the Reliance's investment was Rs 4,500 crore. Today, our investment stands at Rs 28,000 crore in West Bengal alone," he said addressing the fifth edition of the summit.

"This accounts for about one-tenth of our total investments in India so far," Ambani added. "Now, we have firmed up our plan for further investment of Rs 10,000 crore and this plan is already under implementation," he said.

The state is poised to become the "logistics hub of the East" with plans to attract investments of Rs 5,000 crore by 2020. Ambani said the group currently provides directly and indirectly about 1,00,000 employment in the state. The group's endeavour to cover 100 per cent of the state's population with its Jio network is "progressing at a fast pace". "We hope to achieve this within the current year," he said, adding the time has come for Bengal to become "the land of digital revolutionaries".

Reliance Retail operates here over 500 stores and 46 petro-retail outlets in West Bengal and the group has been supporting local businesses by procuring 4,000 metric tonnes of agricultural produce in addition to 2.5 million garments annually, he said. "We operate nearly three million sqft of warehouses in Bengal and with our new initiative, it will increase manifold in the next 24 months," he said.

Jio and Reliance Retail will shortly launch a unique new commerce platform which will benefit consumers and producers and it will empower 3 crore shopkeepers. He said 350 Jio points are already operational and the group is targeting 1,000 by end of this year.

In the last summit, Ambani had hoped "Bengal is becoming the best Bengal", which he said was "indeed coming true". He congratulated the state for providing land for its Data centre projects and assured to make it progress speedily.

(With inputs from agencies.)