Twitter
Advertisement

Full text of Mukesh Ambani's speech during Reliance Industries' 41st Annual General Meeting

We are also building a brand new business of digital broadband telecom services under the Jio name.

Latest News
article-main
Mumbai: Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Ltd. arriving for the 41st annual general meeting of the company in Mumbai on Friday
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

My Dear Shareowners,

A very warm good morning to each and every one of you.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to theA nnual General Meeting of Reliance Industries Limited.

The Company's accounts for the year ended March 31, 2015, along with the Directors' and Auditors' report, a Letter to the Shareholders, and Management's Discussions andAnalysis, have already been circulated to you.

With your permission, I would like to take them as read.

1. Strategic Perspective

Reliance has embarked on a journey of investing over two lakh crores in building new facilities and creating new businesses that will come to fruition in the next 12 to 18 months.

These investments will build new capacities, strengthen our global positions, improve the return on capital and make our existing refinery and petrochemical businesses among the most competitive in the world.

We are also building a brand new business of digital broadband telecom services under the Jio name.

Our investments are entirely in building assets in India and show our unwavering faith in the economic prospects of the country and the aspirations of millions of consumers.

Financial investments are just the manifestation.

Beneath financial investments, are significant efforts in technology deployment, talent development and project And it is proof of Reliance's continuing ability to conceptualise and implement mega-scale projects in quick time.

We have over 100,000 people at Jamnagar working round the clock to complete the projects in petrochemicals and this makes Jamnagar one of the largest constructions sites in the world today.

At the same time over 150,000 people across India are engaged in building out the network and distribution capabilities to make Jio our telecom broadband business a reality. 

The full benefits of this entire investment cycle will be realised from the year 2016-17 onwards.

We will have a unique portfolio of globally competitive petrochemical and refining business with a new age India-centric consumer business with very high growth potential.

This will place Reliance in a select group of most valuable companies in the world.

2. Business nd Financial Performance 

Reliance continued the tradition of setting many new records in terms of its achievements in the past year.

Our earnings before taxes and net profit were both the highest in the company's history.

Our capital expenditure in the year was in excess of Rs.100,000 crore.

This is not only the highest capital expenditure by us in a year, it is the highest by any Indian company ever in a year.

We raised the highest amount of debt capital at very competitive cost to finance our growth.

We improved our credit ratings internationally which gave us continuing access to public debt markets.

We are among the 10 most admired companies in India to work for.

Reliance continues to be a significant contributor to the national exchequer.

Reliance is India's largest exporter accounting for almost 12 % of India's total merchandise exports.

We exported products worth Rs.228,651 crore to over 120 countries during the year – a testimony to the quality and competitiveness of our products.

Reliance paid Rs.18,746 crore of customs and excise duty during the year, which is almost 5% of India's total revenues from customs and excise duty.

Reliance is also the highest Income tax payer in the private sector in India and paid Rs.6 124 crore as income tax 

3. Petrochemicals

I will now share with you the progress of each of our businesses.

Our petrochemical business consists of polyesters, fibre intermediates, polymers, synthetic elastomers and a variety of chemicals and solvents.

We are the largest integrated polyester manufacturer globally.

We are amongst the top 10 producers globally of PX, PTA, MEG and PP.

We are the largest producer of synthetic elastomers in India.

Our petrochemicals business adds value to the refinery streams and is focused on improving quality of life of millions of Petrochemicals business meets the raw-material needs of over 30,000 small and medium scale units directly.

This supports India's manufacturing growth and generates employment for more than 4.5 million Indians.

This business demonstrated robust performance in challenging conditions primarily due to the integrated nature of our operations and world scale capacities.

We continue to strengthen our global polyester leadership position by increasing capacity and continued focus on operational excellence.

Last year we commissioned a fully automated polyester plant at Silvassa with a capacity of around 400,000 tons.

We have brought on-stream 1.15 million tons per annum of PTAcapacity.

We will be ready for start-up of another 1.15 million tons per annum of PTAcapacity at Dahej by October this year.

With this, our total PTAcapacity will be 4.5 million tons per annum, making us the fifth largest PTAproducer in the world.

Our world scale PX plant that will double capacity to 4.2 million tonnes per annum will be ready for start-up by the our end of this financial year.

With this expansion, we will be the second largest PX producer globally.

In our plastics business, we are building a world scale 1.5 million tons ethylene cracker at Jamnagar.

This will be ready for start-up in the third quarter of the next financial year.

This world-scale cracker is unique as it is entirely based on 100% refinery off gas as feedstock.

We are building this cracker at significantly lower capital cost to our peers in NorthAmerica.

This cracker complex is conceptualized on a full integration from feedstock to downstream derivative capacities.

The products from this cracker will meet increased domestic demand, save precious foreign exchange, create

additional employment and provide a fillip to value added exports.

In order to enhance the competitiveness of our existing ethylene crackers at Nagothane, Hazira and Dahej, we are

working aggressively in creating infrastructure for transporting feedstock Ethane from the US to India.

We will be the first to execute this globally at this magnitude and scale. This will be ready for start-up by December 2016.

The sourcing of Ethane and integration with the refinery will result in feedstock security as well optionality in feedstock usage and will significantly improve the earnings potential of our integrated plastics business.

India is fast emerging as an automobile hub with resulting growth in elastomers demand.

We have strengthened our elastomers portfolio by commissioning 150,000 tons per annum of SBR capacity.

This is on top of the expansion of the PBR capacity by 115,000 tonnes per annum last year.

All these petrochemical investments are geared to deliver superior performance in the years to come by focusing on capital cost competitiveness, continuous cost reduction initiatives and operational excellence.

These will strengthen the Government's Make in India initiative as each of our petrochemical venture provides raw material to tens of thousands of downstream processors that provide livelihoods to millions of Indians.

4. Petroleum Refining and Marketing

Let me now turn to Petroleum Refining & Marketing business.

Refining & Marketing continues to be a significant contributor to Reliance's profitability, delivering a strong financial performance during the year 2014-15.

The market environment was extremely volatile and challenging, witnessed by an oversupply in the Crude oil market, that lead to a crash in oil prices by over 50%, after remaining stable for nearly 3 years.

Amidst such an environment, Reliance posted a GRM of $8.6/bbl, outperforming Singapore benchmark yet again, with a premium of $2.3/bbl.

The Jamnagar refineries processed 480 million barrels of crude, at an average operating rate of nearly 110%, which is significantly higher than our regional and global peers.

Reliance maintained its global leadership in all critical benchmarks, achieving top decile performance in nergy efficiency, Operating & Maintenance costs and On tream factor. 

The Jamnagar refineries processed several new challenging crudes during the year, taking the total number of crudes processed so far to a record 144 grades.

While Reliance continues to enhance India's energy security, a significant quantity of its products are exported to world The high quality fuels from the Jamnagar refineries meet the specifications of all key global markets, including the most environmentally stringent ones.

The financial year saw deregulation of diesel prices in India, opening up an opportunity for Reliance to re-enter the domestic retail market.

We will now once again be able to offer Indian consumers, a unique, high quality retail experience through various We plan to re-commission the entire network of petroleum retail outlets by the end of FY 2015-16.

Currently, close to 400 outlets are operational.

OurAviation fuel stations, present at 25 airports across India, fuel an aircraft every 5 minutes on an average.

Our current portfolio integrates the entire value chain from procurement of crude oil all the way to the end retail We are now implementing a Coke gasification facility at Jamnagar, which is also one of the largest clean coal initiatives. This gasification project is based on contemporary technology and is the largest of its kind built in the world.

It will convert low value petroleum coke to a clean energy source for our refinery complex, thus rendering Jamnagar energy self-sufficient as well as enhancing the profitability significantly.

We expect the gasification project to be ready for start-up in phases starting from early 2016.

Upon completion, the project is expected to save nearly 1.5 billion dollars annually by substituting imported LNG with the gas produced by it.

The hydrocarbon rich refinery off-gases freed as a result of this project will be utilized as feedstock for petrochemical plants, thus generating significant additional value.

Gasification shall further enhance the uniqueness of Jamnagar refineries path-breaking configuration as one of the iconic refineries in the world, and sustain our global leadership in the refining and marketing business.

5. Oil nd Gas Exploration nd Production

Let me now share the performance and growth plans in our Exploration and Production (E&P) business.

Your company is a pioneer in deep water Exploration and Production in India.

We discovered India's largest gas reserves in the deep waters of Bay of Bengal, under NELP.

Within a short span of just two and a half years of D26 discovery and six and a half years f D1-D3 discoveries, we had brought two challenging deep-water fields in the KG-D6 block into production.

The block has already produced nearly 2.5 TCF of natural gas and about 27 MMBBL of crude oil, which have so far substituted over US$ 34 billion of energy imports.

We, along with our partner BP, believe in the potential and promise of India's deep waters.

BP brings unmatched global expertise in deep water exploration and production to this country.

We have constantly innovated to maximize recovery and sustain production from the KG-D6 block, despite these being located in one of the most challenging geological reservoirs.

Reliance had a total Earnings before Interest and Taxes of Rs.31,835 crores last year.

The contribution of the E&P business under NELP to this is about Rs 194 crores which is about 0.6 per cent of the We are aware that the domestic E&P business, while creating huge economic value to the country, has generated shareholder returns lower than the cost of capital.

This is in sharp contrast to other domestic infrastructure sectors such as roads, fertilizers and power where 12 to 16% returns are assured under the policy.

It is important to highlight that there is value yet to be unlocked from 5-6 TCF of resources discovered at various stages of development, appraisal and approval.

These developments are very capital intensive and technically challenging which requires cutting edge technologies – a challenge that your company is known to take on and excel in execution.

We are aware that future investments hinge upon the continuing confidence of our shareowners in this high risk. We are constructively engaged with the Government to resolve legacy issues in a timely manner with regards to our rights to cost recovery, gas pricing and other issues to create value for the nation and our shareholders.

In this context, it is important to follow the intent, purpose and commitment of the NELP Policy i.e maximising E&P activities, getting the risk reward balance right and providing marketing and pricing freedom. - This will provide predictability and certainty to the investors.

We are hopeful that the Government will address this policy issue in the larger interest of attracting investments in the critical E&P business.

On the unconventional front, the development of two Coal Bed Methane blocks including the pipeline from Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh to Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh is well on track.

Your company is set to soon become India's largest producer of CBM gas.

In spite of falling oil and gas prices which created a tough operating environment, our Shale Gas business in the US generated revenues close to $ 1 billion during the year.

We have responded by reducing capital expenditures across all our joint ventures and were able to reduce operating costs by 25-30%, which will improve margins.

The decision to divest our interest in EFS Midstream for over $ 1 billion, announced recently, has been guided by our motive to maximize returns.

We will optimize our investment in upstream shale gas joint ventures to generate maximum value.

Though E&P may today be very small in RIL's overall portfolio, it has a high latent value creation potential.

This is a potential that I am personally committed to unlock and create value for all of us, in line with the Government's

vision of reducing import dependence and increasing domestic production.

6. Organised Retail

Reliance Retail which operates across various product categories and formats has attained revenues of over Rs 17,000 crore in the last year.

We achieved record profits of Rs 784 crore at an EBITDA-level.

Despite the challenges faced in a tough consumer environment, this business achieved a compounded annual revenue growth of 31% in the last 5 years.

We accelerated our pace of growth by adding 930 new stores last year which effectively translates to introducing 5 new stores every two days – setting a new global benchmark in terms of the largest number of store openings in a year.

We currently have a network of over 2600 stores and presence in 200 cities 20 states. across Reliance Retail offers employment opportunities for growth to over 50,000 associates across the country.

We are committed to scaling up our retail presence across formats from 200 cities to over 900 cities by next year so that the benefits of organized retail are realized by a wider cross section of Indian consumers.

Reliance Retail continued its leadership in the focus sectors of Digital, Fashion & Lifestyle and Grocery.

The Reliance Digital format continues to expand with its current base of over 1200 stores and continues to delight over 50 million customers across 200 cities.

As the leader in grocery retail, our Value Formats spread across over 570 stores are regularly patronized by over 120 lakh customers per month for their family needs.

Reliance Market which caters to B-2-B customers has further expanded its leadership in wholesale cash-and-carry segment in the country and enjoys patronage of more than 15 lakh small and kirana stores as registered members.

Reliance Trends and Footprint continue to drive leadership presence in the fashion and lifestyle segments.

With its emphasis on fashion for the Indian sensibilities, Reliance Trends continues on its accelerated growth path by selling over 50 lakh garments a month.

Reliance Footprint with its 250 speciality stores continues to cater to over 20 lakh customers.

Having partnered with Reliance Retail, many global brands such as Marks & Spencers, Hamleys and Vision Express, to name a few, have realized the dream of India being one of their largest international markets.

Reliance Retail this year will be embarking on its next phase of building a high growth trajectory supported with e-commerce and larger geographic coverage.

This year will bring about disruptive shopping experience for consumers as they embrace technology and get access to anytime anywhere shopping.

With the advanced internet infrastructure built by Jio and a robust physical retail business built by Reliance Retail, we will create a differentiated e-commerce model for India.

This model will entail seamless integration of online and offline while innovating across superior customer experience delivery services and payment ecosystem.

Before the end of year, the Fashion and Lifestyle formats of Reliance Retail will roll out its e-commerce initiative and make fashion more trendy and accessible to the aspiring Indian youth.

Reliance's e-commerce initiative in grocery, www.reliancefreshdirect.com, which is currently being piloted has seen significant success and would be further scaled up to serve new markets.

The third e-commerce initiative is building on the successful experience of our physical B2B business.

We are rolling out Reliance Digital Marketplace platform to enable millions of small retailers and provide them with a. enhanced supplier base and product range b. better supply chain productivity c. digital payment capability

d. connectivity to customers and we believe that this initiative will be a driver for economic growth by enhancing business potential for millions of small Reliance Retail is committed to deliver superior shopper and customer experience across all our physical and e- commerce platforms in a seamless manner.

True customer value lies in converting “Footfalls” to “Happy Hearts” so that all our shoppers in the physical formats and e-commerce are engaged and delighted with the “Reliance Customer Experience”, in a seamless manner.

This combined physical and e-commerce retail business is poised for a growth of 30% to 50% y-o-y and sustain our We are committed to growing Reliance Retail and making it a significant part of our consumer business to generate societal and shareholder value.

7. Reliance Jio – Our Digital Services Initiative

I now turn to Reliance Jio, one of the largest transformational green-field digital initiatives anywhere in the world.

In my address to you at last year's AGM, I had promised you a significant update on Reliance Jio when we meet again Firstly, I would like to applaud and salute the entire Jio team for what they have achieved in the past two years.

Their accomplishments have been nothing short of exceptional.

Let me now share with you the extent of their work.

Jio is now present in all of the 29 states of India, with a direct physical presence in nearly 18,000 cities and towns of our Jio's wireless footprint extends even further and covers over one lakh villages.

We are expanding this footprint to cover nearly 80% of India's population by the end of this year.

Our roadmap is to have 100% national coverage within the next 3 years.

Jio is the first 4G broadband wireless operator to achieve wireless coverage far in excess of the rollout obligation as per In rural areas, we are prioritizing connectivity to thousands of schools.

This is to ensure that the benefit of our broadband initiative is first and foremost felt by students who stand to gain the most by accessing the Information highway.

Jio has also deployed a network of nearly 250,000 route kilometres of fibre optics, thereby creating a future-proof digital backbone across India.

Over the next 3 years, Jio will more than double this fibre footprint by deploying fibre optics in the last mile.

We are using this deep fibre network also to ramp-up our Fibre-to-the-Home deployment.

By April of next year, we would have connected over 1 million homes via fibre with a capability of rapidly scaling up in the top 50 cities of India.

Jio is the only operator in the World providing next generation digital services over an end-to-end all-IP network.

We are also connecting Enterprises, SMB, and SME customers over this high speed IP network, enabling advanced services using cloud based solutions.

In addition to this domestic fibre optic capacity, Jio has created a multi-Terabit capacity international network.

More than half of Internet traffic served by Jio will be carried end-to-end on Jio's own network, creating an unparalleled Simply put, what Jio has done is to connect the remotest village of the country to any Internet destination hosted anywhere in the world.

Across the world, a full-blown social, mobile, digital and cloud revolution is underway.

To support India's prominent participation in this revolution, Jio has operationalized nearly half a million square feet of its own next-generation Cloud data centres.

Work is underway to double this capacity over the next year.

Planning and executing such complex projects is a core Reliance strength.

The Jio team has grown rapidly over the past year to over 17,500 full time employees. - This team has successfully managed dozens of world-class technology partners and more than 150,000 people on the ground to achieve this rollout.

Even as Jio undertakes this mammoth rollout, we continue to take steps to further strengthen its competitive position.

Our acquisition of wireless spectrum during the spectrum auctions conducted in March of this year is a case in point.

In addition to the existing Pan India 2300 MHz spectrum and 1800 MHz in 14 circles, Jio invested over Rs 10,000 crore during this year's auction to acquire 800 MHz spectrum in 10 circles and 1800 MHz spectrum in 6 circles.

This brings our cumulative investment in spectrum assets to nearly Rs 34,000 crores.

Jio now has the largest footprint of liberalized spectrum in the country, acquired in an extremely cost effective manner.

All the key components of the Jio broadband network are now operational.

As we speak, we have an end-to-end initial capacity to serve in excess of 100 million wireless Broadband and 20 million Fibre-to-the-Home customers, with capability to easily expand further as the business scales up.

We are currently in the pre-launch testing and stabilization phase of this large and complex network.

Over the next few months, we will initiate an extensive beta launch involving millions of friendly customers across all This beta program will be upgraded into commercial operations around December of this year.

I am glad to announce that financial year 2016-17 will be the first full year of commercial operations for Jio.

It is personally gratifying for me that Jio's investments are aligned to Government of India's “Digital India” vision for our This is a key theme for transforming our nation and creating opportunities for all citizens by harnessing digital

Jio's broadband assets will be the bedrock for this digital India.

I am confident that Jio will play a significant role in lifting India from its current 142nd rank on internet penetration to amongst the top 10 nations in the world.

Let me briefly touch upon another key focus area for Jio, namely – Devices.

The best network and the best of content cannot be seamlessly accessed without capable and affordable devices.

Ensuring the availability of affordable 4G LTE smartphones has been one of the topmost priorities for Jio.

Jio and Reliance Digital teams have worked with all the leading device manufacturers of the world to ensure availability of 4G LTE smartphones across all price points – from ultra-premium models on one hand, to entry level models on the Having a strong line-up of smartphones, tablets and devices across all price points will remove a key barrier to mass adoption of broadband data, High Definition voice, video calling, messaging and rich value-added services.

It is interesting to note that in China 4G LTE devices as a percentage of overall device shipment has increased from 10% to over 84% in just the past year.

I expect a similar trend in India.

The combination of Jio's strong initiatives and a supportive global environment, gives me the confidence that we will see 4G LTE smartphones in India at prices below Rs 4,000 by December of this year.

Jio is well-positioned to emerge as a global Tier-1 telecom operator.

But, Jio is much more than just telecom services.

The three-pronged combination of broadband networks, affordable smartphones and the availability of rich content and applications has created a global Information tsunami.

We had foreseen this development even when Jio was first conceptualized.

We followed an integrated business strategy from the very beginning, and today, Jio is capable of offering a unique combination of telecom, high speed data, digital commerce, media and payment services.

InApril this year, we launched our first mobile application, 'Jio Chat'.

Jio Chat is a powerful communication application that integrates chat, voice, video calling, conferencing, file sharing, photo sharing and much more in a single application.

We released Jio chat on both theAndroid Play store andApple app store on a pilot basis.

In just the first few weeks of operations, Jio Chat now has a million active users, without any paid promotions or over paid advertisements whatsoever.

This is just the first public glimpse of the digital capabilities that we have developed at Jio.

Let me take a few moments to talk about the other applications that we will be unveiling in the coming weeks Switch-and-Walk is an interesting application that allows customers to seamlessly copy everything from their oldphone to a new phone.

All your contacts, messages, photos, music, media and applications – from one phone to another, wirelessly, with just a No wires. No lost information. Across operating systems and phone models.

'Jio Drive' is an application that brings powerful cloud capabilities to every smartphone.

Using Jio Drive, anyone can store, sync and share any content between their own devices and also with their friends.

This is the type of capabilities that only large enterprises are able to provide to their employees.

With Jio Drive, every consumer and small business owner will have this ability.

Now to entertainment and news, which has been, and still remains, a huge opportunity.

Jio is ready to launch a suite of exciting, engaging, exclusive and entertaining digital media products.

With this, one will be able to watch HD TV anytime, anywhere on any device.

It has hundreds of channels, across categories and languages.

In developed markets, over a billion hours of video is consumed every month on demand.

50% of all peak traffic is video on demand traffic.

We have built a best in class, personalized video on demand application that brings Bollywood, regional and international movies, TV episodes, trailers and music videos in High Definition for your entertainment.

'Jio Beats' is a premier digital music streaming service that gives you instant access to millions of songs and curated playlists – from old favourites to the latest hits.

One can also download music listen to it offline. and 'Jio Mags' provides the most popular collection of magazines, in full colour and with a slew of innovative features.

One can read past issues along with the very latest issues.

Imagine enjoying your favourite magazine on your mobile and tablet with embedded videos.

'Jio News' delivers a one stop shop for all news from leading news publishing houses across multiple languages and It offers instant live updates with zero loading time and offline reading capability.

All these services are ready and are being piloted today and will be launched along with Jio connectivity services.

Jio will bring true digitization and a transformation of the current television viewing experience, and mark a shift in the controls from the broadcaster to the hand of the consumer.

This year, we completed the acquisition of Network 18.

Network 18 has 17 news channels, 14 entertainment channels, in 8 languages, and a strong set of internet businesses that will be well positioned to transition to the Jio platform.

We are working to transform all of these to build and sustain leadership in each of these areas.

By 2017-18 it will be the most integrated TV / mobile set of content in India.

I am privileged to have ShriAdil Zainulbhai from the Board to guide this initiative.

Earlier this year, Jio also applied for a pan-India cable television multi-system operator (MSO) license and has plans to enter into broadcast TV distribution.

I will apprise you of further progress in the forthcomingAGM.

Another exciting area that Jio is working on is Jio Money, our digital money and digital payments business.

Evidence from developed markets show that mass adoption of digital payment solutions have significant positive impacts on the economy.

It brings better transparency, improves financial inclusion, facilitates merchant business and drives growth of trade & However, more than 95% of all Retail payments in India are still done using cash.

Out of 20 million or so merchants in the country, less than 1 million accept card based payments.

In turn, this lack of acceptance of digital payments by merchants means that customers remain wedded to cash.

Jio Money will play a crucial role in digitisation of payments in India by offering a platform for ubiquitous, affordable and secure digital payments.

It is the ideal solution for even our smallest merchants, such as kiranas, restaurants, and taxi drivers.

No additional device is needed and they will be able to accept payments using just their phone.

Our goal is to create a wide network of merchants who use Jio Money, so that most household payments can happen Customers can use Jio Money's digital wallet, a Jio Money card or any other credit/debit card directly from the wallet to pay merchant seamlessly and instantly.

Jio Money digital wallet will also give consumers the option of opening a Digital Bank Account or linking their existing This will help them access banking anywhere, anytime.

I am pleased to share that the core Jio Money product and the end to end systems that support it are operational.

To begin with, we have launched the product within a few Reliance campuses and facilities.

We expect to expand the Jio Money presence city by city, across the country in phases over the next few quarters.

Jio Money will leverage on Jio's digital network and distribution reach to acquire these untapped merchants.

Your company has also partnered with India's largest commercial bank, State Bank of India, to apply for the Payments Bank license under regulations issued by the Reserve Bank of India.

The Payments Bank, if approved, will complement our initiatives on the digital payments business and also enable distribution of financial services by leveraging on Retail and other Jio business in the most accessible, simple and affordable manner with specific focus on the financially excluded.

I am immensely proud of our ongoing achievements at Jio.

We have created a legacy free, next-generation voice and broadband network which can be seamlessly upgraded even to 5G and beyond.

We will deliver the gold standard for coverage and capacity, and push to raise the bar even further with small cells.

We have created a slew of innovative digital applications, with a roadmap to introduce similar applications in education and healthcare, two additional sectors that we have prioritized.

In everything that we have done at Jio, we have lived by the 3 mantras of “Simple, Smart and Secure”.

However, I believe that Jio's role is much larger than just offering its own services.

Jio's true success will be measured by a whole new generation of entrepreneurs stepping up to leverage the digital assets that Jio has built.

In that sense, what Jio is building is a powerful platform on which a range of rich digital services can be enabled.

It does not matter whether these services are created by Jio itself, its ecosystem partners or anyone globally.

We are committed to the principles of Net Neutrality.

Our founder Chairman, Dhirubhai, used to say that the success of the young entrepreneur will be the key to India's transformation in the new millennium.

Digital currency, digital commerce, digital education, digital healthcare, e-governance, M2M and the Internet of things, Smart Cities; I won't be exaggerating if I say that each of these areas are ripe for hundreds of thousands of

entrepreneurial ventures.

Collectively, Jio and Jio-enabled entrepreneurs can sow the seeds of a whole new digital economy, leading to a phase of unprecedented growth, empowerment, employment and prosperity for our nation.

With such a broad canvas to paint on, Jio continues to be a magnet for the best talent from across the world.

Every day, I am privileged to work alongside thousands of passionate and dedicated professionals who strive tirelessly I have no doubt that Jio's multipronged business model and flawless execution will translate to unparalleled value creation for shareholders.

Truly, when I look forward to the impact that Jio stands to make in the lives of illions of our citizens, I am reminded of me the words of the great Indian poet, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore:

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free...

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

It is my fervent conviction that a digital India will awaken to its rightful place in the World as a global leader.

8. Reliance Foundation

I am happy to share with you the rapid progress that your Foundation has made.

In just 4 years, we are the biggest corporate foundation in India.

Our BIJ programme has reached out to more than 500 villages in some of the most drought prone pockets across 12

Our interventions have helped over 50,000 farmers reap second and third crops from their lands with enhanced irrigation and improved soil fertility.

RF Information Services has become the biggest disseminator of livelihood related information and content for poor people reaching out to more than 5000 villages.

Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital has been re-built to global standards with state of the art equipment and technology for tertiary care and was dedicated by the Hon. Prime Minister to the city of Mumbai.

Am delighted to announce, on behalf of Smt. Nita Ambani, that all our shareholders will be provided 10 % discount on services in this hospital.

Affordable and quality health care is made accessible to urban poor through the Reliance Foundation's Health outreach Programme and over one lakh patients have been rendered free services.

The Foundation has been one of the very few Indian organizations to have rendered relief to earthquake hit Nepal, on the back of the excellent relief efforts in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand.

The Foundation through its DhirubhaiAmbani Scholarship programme, Young Champs and Education ForAll Initiative strives to nurture and encourage the youth to realise their dreams.

Last month, we inaugurated the Jio Garden spread over 13,000 sq. ft along with an integrated large car park in Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai.

50 plus Jio gardens of a planned 400 gardens are currently under development across the nation as in Agra, Nashik, Chennai, Noida, Lucknow andAhmedabad, to name just a few.

The Foundation spent Rs. 761 crores last year to benefit over 4 million deserving people across India.

I am confident that under Smt. Nita Ambani's leadership, the Foundation will continue to establish innovative developmental models and make a deep impact on large sections of our population.

9. Talent at Reliance

We worked extensively on completing our Business Transformation initiative.

We now have put in place a comprehensive Reliance Management System (RMS), a holistic set of management systems, organisational structures, processes and requirements.

We believe RMS has substantially enabled us to become a more systematic and simpler company with extensive It shall enable a still more evolved governance and risk assurance framework for your company through its three key elements: Operating Management System (OMS), Financial Management System (FMS) and People Management These integrated processes, systems and data analytics will ensure we are ready to enhance shareholder and societal value on a continuous basis.

In the last one year, we have continued to strengthen our People systems.

I am pleased to report that today Reliance has arguably the most contemporary practices and processes across the entire employee life cycle.

Through the year we have been able to significantly deepen our leadership bench strength across businesses and Decision rights have been pushed down, systems simplified and digitally enabled, and our "One Reliance" philosophy has allowed our employees to own their careers in our internal job mart.

We believe that all these initiatives will help us continue to being among the leaders in the Best Companies to Work for and attract world class talent.

10. Value Creation Roadmap

My dear shareowners,

We have accomplished a lot in the past 38 years but the best is just ahead of us.

We have set ourselves a high bar of performance and aspirations.

We are nearing the realisation of our largest investment programme in our history of over Rs. 200,000 crore.

This is our contribution to our most respected Prime Minister's clarion call of a. “Make in India” – Over Rs. 100,000 crore committed to strengthening our refinery and petrochemical business b. and Over Rs. 100,000 crore invested in enabling the realisation of a “Digital India”.

We are committed to creating societal value at par with our financial value.

We aim to be among the largest employers in India offering opportunities to hundreds of thousands people in our of consumer businesses.

And partner with lakhs of small businesses, kirana and budding entrepreneurs and make them more productive.

We will create an ecosystem which will catalyse entrepreneurship through our Jio and Retail businesses.

We will be in the top quartile in terms of return on capital employed and operating costs across all our refining and We will measure ourselves against total shareholder return over cycles and aim to be among the best.

We want to be among the most admired companies in the world and attract the best talent.

These are tough targets that we have taken upon ourselves but I am confident that they are within our reach.

Our growth will be based on two massive engines – hydrocarbons and consumer businesses.

Our growth will be on several dimensions – financial parameters, scale of operations and number of customers that we engage on a daily basis and the lives of Indians that we benefit every day.

Each of this dimension will see scale – but what we will value is the smiles that we bring to the face of the millions of customers every single time that they interact with us.

In this endeavour, we seek your continued support and blessings on this journey.

Let me conclude by saying that our faith in India and its potential is as robust as ever.

Our sustained investments over four decades in India is a clear testimony to that belief.

As I mentioned earlier, India's march to pursue hyper-ambitious goals in economic growth and social development has 

Reliance will be at the vanguard of this march, inspiring and empowering tens of thousands of new and youngentrepreneurs to pursue their dreams – just as DhirubhaiAmbani did to build Reliance.

I am supremely confident that India's young generation will exceed the domestic and global expectations with their talent and innovativeness, passion and patriotism, hard work and integrity.

I am saying this because I am seeing this in Reliance on a daily basis.

Along with a New India, a New Reliance is taking shape.

The new generation in Reliance will take your company to newer heights.

You and I have many more dreams for Reliance, and I am confident that these dreams will be fulfilled.

The primary purpose of all of Reliance's businesses, as well as our philanthropic initiatives under the Reliance Foundation, is to create opportunities for more and more Indians.

In pursuing this purpose, we will continue to be true to the fundamental tenets of Reliance – investing in businesses of the future, building world-class businesses in India, betting on extraordinary talent, and promoting the spirit of innovation in all our operations.

Our businesses are geared to produce products and services that are on par with the best in the world.

We are not only working to make Digital India a reality, but also enabling a Digital Bharat – thereby destroying the digital divide between the urban and rural areas.

In our digital business, our plan is to provide the same power of computing, communication and information to every individual, whether in towns or rural areas, that the US President had ten to fifteen years ago.

All this at about Rs.300 to Rs. 500 per month.

All of these will help improve livelihoods, create large-scale employment opportunities, reinforce India as a manufacturing power, unleash entrepreneurial energy and create significant value for Indian society.

Reliance will work with enthusiasm and energy in achieving these goals and creating significant value for India and our

12. Acknowledgements

I will like to thank the Central and State Governments, shareholders, investors, suppliers and customers for their consistent and resolute support.

I thank all my colleagues on the Board for their unanimous support and immense encouragement.

I have special words to acknowledge the collective efforts of the entire Reliance team, working tirelessly to creating and sustaining a world-class enterprise.

Mumbai Mukesh D. Ambani

June 12, 2015 Chairman and Managing Director

Note: This does not purport to be a record of the proceedings of the 41 Annual General Meeting of the Company.

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement