Mumbai, July 11 (IANS) Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group, on Friday announced that the conglomerate is preparing for a capital expenditure investment of nearly $100 billion over the next five years.

“The scale and pace of this commitment is unprecedented in India’s private sector history as we do our part for strengthening the very spine of India’s rise that must carry 1.4 billion dreams,” Gautam Adani remarked.

Addressing a conference of top doctors here, Gautam Adani said these investments are manifestations of the Adani Group’s “belief in the future of India” comprising energy grids, logistics arteries and the country’s industrial backbone.

He was addressing the 5th Annual Conference of the Society for Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery-Asia Pacific (SMISS-AP), in Mumbai.

Gautam Adani narrated the Group’s success story of building the Mundra port from a mere salt export jetty to India’s largest multi-cargo port.

“Mundra is the manifestation of a belief made real. It is a reminder that, when vision dares, destiny bends as it is now India’s largest multi-cargo port, the world’s largest private single-site thermal power plant, India’s first HVDC transmission line, India’s largest integrated solar and wind manufacturing hub and a cluster of vital industries that include petrochemicals, copper smelters, solar accessories and much more yet to come,” the Adani Group Chairman pointed out.

He said that after the US partner backed out of the Mundra salt export jetty at the outset, his company went ahead and built it on its own with no construction experience in the marshland.

Around this time in 1995-96, Gujarat pioneered a public–private partnership policy for port development, aiming to tap private sector capabilities and the Adani Group “dived right in,”

The Mundra Port commenced operations in October 1998 with its first berth, thereby marking India’s first private port launch. A few years later, the SEZ policy was announced.

“Once again, we moved fast. While others saw barren land, we saw 40,000 acres of possibility,” Gautam Adani remarked.

He said the Mundra port experience gave the company courage to look beyond limits, “it gave us the belief that barren salt lands could be converted to world-class infrastructure, and it gave us the conviction that if we could make it happen once, we could do it again bigger, faster and bolder.”

The Adani Group Chairman further stated that “What started in our karmabhoomi has now become a pan-India network of dreams, powering our growth that has made rhe world’s 2nd-largest solar power company and building the world’s largest single-site hybrid renewable park of 30 GW spanning over 500 square kms.

The Adani Group is also India’s largest integrated private airport operator with over 25 per cent of India’s passengers and 38 per cent of our nation’s air cargo, India’s largest ports and logistics network handling 30 per cent of the nation’s sea- borne cargo, he further stated.

Besides, the Group runs the most highly integrated energy business encompassing thermal and renewable generation, transmission, distribution, LNG, LPG, CNG, PNG, battery storage, hydrogen trucks, EV charging stations, pumped hydro, and mining

It is also India’s second-largest and most efficient cement manufacturer as well as aerospace and defence, data centres, and real estate, Gautam Adani added.

–IANS

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