Mukesh eyes power,telecom,good ties with brothers group

The announcements came at the annual general meeting of Reliance and were greeted with cheer and applause by hundreds of share holders of the company.

However,many were also left disappointed as Anil did not turn up at the meeting as expected for what would have been a public display of truce by the worlds richest siblings.

Mukesh said RIL would supply natural gas to Anils ADA Group power plants as and when they are ready to receive gas following the Supreme Court ruling upholding RILs stand that the government has a major say in pricing and allocation of gas. With the legal dispute behind us,we look forward to harmonious and constructive relationship with ADAG, he said.

There is a game-changing development of RIL and ADAG annulling the earlier non-compete agreement and replacing it with a new one, he said,adding This new agreement opens up the full range of power business for RIL,except non-captive gas-based power plants until 2022. This paves the way for Reliance to participate in the whole value chain of power business,spanning generation,transmission and distribution,where we see an unbounded opportunity in this space. Sources in RIL said the company could be looking at generating 20,000-30,000 MW over the next five years.

Mukesh laid out plans to expand the international oil and gas portfolio built by Reliance in seven countries over the years. The year ahead promises to be an exciting one for us. We shall be drilling the first exploration wells in our assets in Kurdistan in Northern Iraq and in East Timor. In Columbia,Yemen,and Oman we shall continue our efforts through application of cutting edge technology to establish the presence of petroleum systems within our acreages, he said.

He also detailed plans for telecommunications,which he said had changed much since Reliance first ventured into the Infocomm space with 2G CDMA based mobile services eight years ago. From less than 5 million mobile users in 2001,India today has grown to nearly 600 million mobile users,and continues to add close to 20 million new customers every month. India is now the second largest,and the fastest growing,telecom market in the world.

No doubt,this is a matter of great pride and optimism for all of us, Mukesh said. Today,India has less than 1 per cent market penetration,compared to the developed nations which have over 60 per cent market penetration. Meanwhile,China has a rapidly growing market of over 130 million broadband users. Global experience has shown us that broad-based and seamless access to information significantly accelerates countries economic growth.

In my view,next generation technologies exist today that can link India to this digital expressway far more effectively than ever before. It is possible to polevault India from the prevailing 1G and 2G technologies to fourth generation technologies and beyond, Mukesh said.

He said RIL had acquired a 95 per cent stake in Infotel Broadband Services Pvt Ltd to create a nation-wide network of next-generation wireless broadband services.

Infotel was the only successful bidder in all of the 22 circles in the Broadband Wireless Access auction conducted by DoT,Government of India, he said.