Mukesh Ambani, chairman & managing director of Reliance Industries (RIL), expects at least 20-30 new Indian companies in the energy & tech space to become as large as Reliance, if not larger, over the next decade or two. “It took Reliance about 15 years to become a $1-billion company, 30 years to become a $10-billion company, 35 years to become a $100-billion company, and 38 years to touch $200 billion. I have no doubt that the next generation of Indian entrepreneurs will achieve this in half the time,” Ambani said.

Ambani was having a fireside chat on Wednesday with RA Mashelkar, president, Pune International Centre (PIC), at the Asia Economic Dialogue 2022, organised by the ministry of external affairs and the PIC. The Reliance boss said India offers one of the most attractive opportunities for renewable energy investment anywhere in the world. “The government is proactive in meeting the financing needs of the new energy sector. The recent announcement in the Union Budget about the launch of Sovereign Green Bonds is a step in that direction,” he said.

The country’s young and super-talented entrepreneurs would make India a green energy superpower in the next 20 years, just like India became an IT superpower in the last 20 years, he said. He thought it was commendable that the new energy businesses in India were standing on their own two feet, with their own entrepreneurship, and very little support of or basis of any great government subsidies.

India’s clean and green energy exports has the export potential of half a trillion dollars in 20 years and India would emerge as a superpower in energy and life sciences, he said. On Reliance’s foray into green energy, he said the climate crisis was essentially an energy crisis and the transition from old energy to new, green and clean energy was not an option but an urgent imperative. Energy transition would determine geopolitical transition in the 21st century. “When India becomes not only self-sufficient in green and clean energy, but also a large exporter, it will help India emerge as a global power,” Ambani said.

The transition to the new energy would lead to a new earth-friendly industrial revolution, unlike the earlier industrial revolution that was based on exploitation of natural resources; in contrast, the transition to green and clean energy represented a disruption of a reverse kind, he said.

“The India growth story will be as exciting, if not more exciting, than China’s in the decades to come. It is India’s Time!” Ambani said. He expected India to overtake Japan as Asia’s second-largest economy by 2030 and overtake the European Union as the world’s third largest economy by some time around 2030-2032.

“India’s progress is unstoppable. We will become $5-trillion economy, and we will become $10-trillion economy. We can only argue about whether it happens in 2025 or 2027 or whether in 2030 or 2032,” Ambani said.

He has predicted India’s per capita income to go up from around $2,000 to $10,000 in the next 15-20 years.

During the chat, Ambani paid homage to late industrialist Rahul Bajaj. Calling him a very good friend, Ambani said Bajaj was one of India’s most respected industrialists. He also credited Mashelkar and Vijay Kelkar for their role in helping him shape Reliance. Mashelkar had planted in everyone at Reliance the seed of disruptive innovation.

He also remembered that Kelkar, who was chairman of BICP (Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices) told him that the government could never be a profit-guarantee corporation.

“To hear that in the early 80’s really formed my vision of the world and I am ever grateful to him and to build Reliance as an institution which competes fairly and fearlessly with the rest of the world,” Ambani said.