Top executives of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), including CEO Tarun Jhunjhunwala, arrived from Mumbai to meet West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari at the state secretariat, Nabanna, on Wednesday evening.
RIL is likely to invest in sectors pertaining to IT, infrastructure, energy, coal to gas, international cable and landing stations, coal gasification and biogas, food parks and semi conductors.
The coastal area of Digha in East Midnapore district is likely to be the cable landing station which would link Bengal to international undersea data cables, potentially boosting data centres, cloud services and the IT industry.
Reliance Industries has not yet set a fixed timeline for projects in West Bengal. More meetings will continue to take place to settle land needs, locations, infrastructure and administrative support. The West Bengal government has already spoken about details of possible land parcels which can be utilised for these projects. The RIL team is expected to inspect the proposed sites and conduct preliminary assessments, with development likely to begin at the earliest.
Preliminary plans are for RIL to develop a Silicon Valley hub in the New Town area, for which 40 acres of land have been given by the government. There is a possibility of Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani visiting Kolkata to finalise projects in the near future.
The meeting at Nabanna comes after Adhikari visited Mukesh Ambani and Anant Ambani at their residence for Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations on September 21. Adhikari had stated last week that a team from Ambani Group would be visiting Kolkata to discuss investment opportunities.
The BJP has been riding on an investment wave in West Bengal, with major investors promising to invest in the state and contribute to job creation, an area where the state has faced persistent challenges. Last week, Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani laid the foundation stone for a 2,000-bed hospital in the New Town area, of which 1,000 beds will be dedicated to low-cost treatment.
