RELIANCE : Strongly & Steadily Building Aatmanirbhar Bharat

Action speaks louder than the words and this is what Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group under the leadership of one of the prominent Indian business tycoon Mr. Mukesh Ambani has demonstrated even when the Indian economy witnessed the most unprecedented time in its history. Reliance Jio, a business conglomerate that has set a remarkable benchmark of corporate governance, compliances and distress free group even during the pandemic has left no stone unturned in achieving the objective of Honourable Prime Minister of India , Shri Narender Modi of making India a self-reliant nation in the briefest time length. Reliance is very evidently practising and preaching the concept of “Today’s Local, Tomorrow’s Global”.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is ranked at 106 position on the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's biggest corporations of 2019 and ranked at 8th position among the Top 250 Global Energy Companies by Platts as of 2016. As on 31st March 2019, RIL had 158 subsidiary companies and 7 associate companies. RIL convened its first ever online Annual General Meeting (43rd AGM) on 15th July 2020 through its own software Jio Meet which was joined by three lakh stakeholders from the different parts of the world. Starting from retail, e-commerce and electronic sector, RIL is in a business battle with everyone even in telecom, e-payments, music streaming, online education, healthcare, media, oil & gas sector as well.

The key highlights of the financial position of RIL for FY 2019-20 are as follows:

• EBITDA: Greater than INR 1 Lakh Crores [10% Consolidated EBITDA Growth (YoY)]
•  TRADE: RIL export of merchandise goods accounts for 9.1% of the total exports of the Indian economy by exporting to 109 countries worth INR 2.02 Lakh Crores.
• CUSTOMS & EXCISE DUTY: Paid highest custom and excise duty in overall India’ s private sector for INR 21 Thousand Crores in
• TAX: Paid INR 8 Thousand Crores of Income Tax and INR 69 Thousand Crores of GST/VAT.
• RIL is Net Debt Free company ahead of its schedule for March 2021.

The Road Travelled : Extraordinary achievements made by RIL in the recent past are as follows:

1. Facebook, Google, Silver Lake, Vista, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, TPG, L Catterton, PIF, Intel and Qualcomm are RIL’s new business partners and have invested a whopping amount of INR 1,52,056 Crores in Reliance Jio.
2. RIL has entered into a Joint Venture with British Petroleum (BP) with an investment of INR 7,629 Crores comprising 49% stake in the joint venture.
3. RIL has raised a cumulative capital worth INR 2,12,809 Crores.
4. There are 400 Million users of Jio’s mobile broadband service.
5.  Jio's Digital Services also include Jio Fiber Home Broadband, Enterprise Broadband, Broadband for SME (Small Medium Enterprise) and NB IOT Service (Narrow Band - Internet of Things).
6. RIL possess 100% owned Intellectual Property Rights.
7. Den and Hathway are being merged with Network18 and TV18 in a move that will consolidate RIL’s media and distribution businesses. Network 18 Group has 72 channels across news and entertainment, reaching more than 800 million Indians.
8. Jio Mart: A virtual store connecting local grocery shops with customers across 200 cities of India.
9. Jio TV+ is the company’s new video streaming service. The platform offers content from over 12 OTT players like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ Hotstar and Voot. Jio TV+ also has different sections for movies, shows, live TV, kids content and music. It comes with voice search support and a single sign-in for all the 12 apps.

The Road Ahead: While achieving one after another glorious milestones and accolades across the globe, RIL has yet another list of innovative projects on board that will surely take the graph of Indian economy to the new heights.

1. A complete Jio 5G solution from scratch using 100% homegrown technologies and solutions under 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat Mission’. Jio is currently 5G ready and it will start trials once the spectrum is available.
2. As a strategic partner, Google will invest USD 4.5 Billions for a 7.73% stake in Jio. The Jio-Google partnership will also result in a new and affordable smartphone which will be based on a customised Android Operating System.
3. The sole hardware launch at the AGM was Jio Glass which is a pair of smart glasses powered by mixed reality. The Jio Glass is pretty light weighing just 75 grams that can connect to the internet via a smartphone cable. It has support for 25 apps and all audio formats. The Jio Glass can be used for virtual meetings, share presentations and even interact with 3D and 2D avatars.
4. Reliance Jio is rigorously working on enhancing 4G Network, Cloud Computing Devices and Operating Systems, Big Data Analytics, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Virtual and Mixed Reality, Block Chain, Natural Language Understanding and Computer Vision.
5. RIL will soon be launching its own online education platform named Embibe.
6. Jio Health Hub an End-to-End Health Care Services is also on anvil.
7. RIL will be expanding Jio Mart to cover Electronics, Fashion, Pharmaceutical, and Healthcare sector as well.
8. RIL is working towards achieving Net Carbon-Zero by Year 2035.

The tagline of RIL “Growth is Life” is very aptly justified and will go a long way in transforming India and overall global economy. Countries around the world already admires India as a great business hub and one of the most competitive economy. Not far will be the days when Indians and people across the globe will be using majorly “Made in India” products and India will emerge out as one of the greatest economy in the world walking hand in hand with worldwide leading nations.

[This Article is written in co-authorship with Akash Jindal (MBA Student at UPES, Dehradun)]