Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani on 19th June compared the Indian Economy during the term of the Modi government to an aircraft taking off, while saying that the period before that since 1991 was about building foundations and the runway. Delivering the keynote address at the ‘Infrastructure – The Catalyst For India’s Future’ event by CRISIL in Mumbai, Adani praised the government of the past 10 years for the rapid growth in the development of infrastructure.
In his keynote address, Gautam Adani talked about the role of government policies and governance in building infrastructure, the future of infrastructure and its interconnection with sustainability, and Adani Group’s areas of focus and the role we are playing in developing national infrastructure. He said that he can very confidently say that India’s infrastructure industry is undergoing a stunning change, and the people will be able to appreciate its impact fully after a decade.
Talking about the development of Indian economy, he said that the liberalization in 1991 marked a major turning point. “The breaking down of the License Raj meant that the government did away with industrial licensing for most sectors. It eliminated much of the requirement for businesses to obtain government permission to invest, or set prices, or build capacity,” he said.
Adani said that while the period from 1991 to 2014 was about establishing a strong foundation, the period from 2014 to 2024 saw rapid growth on this foundation. Comparing it with an airport, he said, “If the period between 1991 and 2014 was about putting down the foundations and building the runway the period from 2014 to 2024 has been about the aircraft taking off.”
Talking about the two terms of Modi govt, Gautam Adani said, “the single most important catalyst enabling this take off has been the quality of governance over the past decade. India’s remarkable infrastructure journey is fundamentally rooted in this government’s effectiveness in institutionalizing policy for transforming our nation’s landscape—from one of challenges—to one of possibilities.”
The Adani Group chief praised the Modi govt’s National Infrastructure Pipeline project that has outlined a projected investment of ₹111 lakh crore over the period FY20 to FY25. He said this is the benchmark in ow a government can galvanize an entire sector and put in view of several thousand infrastructure projects across sectors like energy, logistics, airports and social infrastructure.
Adani said how foreigners now-a-days talk about the infrastructure development in India. He said at the event, “almost every foreign visitor that I meet these days talks about the extraordinary infrastructure growth they see in India be it the quality of the multi-lane highways, the massive construction projects all over the country, access to ports across the nation’s coastline, the rapid penetration of green energy, a world class and modern transmission grid, dedicated freight corridors, the quality and access to airports across the country, several new metro rail networks, and the massive trans-sea links.”
He also said that Indian govt has transformed the financial system in with digital economy. He said, “Indian Government’s Aadhaar UPI infrastructure has transformed the financial ecosystem in India. This system has democratized access to financial services to such an extreme level that it has allowed even the previously unbanked population to participate in the digital economy.”
Echoing the Modi government’s target of Indian economy, Gautam Adani said that India will become a 10 trillion-dollar economy by 2032, adding that cumulative spend on infrastructure will exceed 2.5 trillion-dollars. He said that about 25% of this entire spending is expected to be on energy and energy transition.
He further predicted that within the next decade, India will start adding a trillion dollars to its GDP every 12 to 18 months. This will put India well on track to be a 30 trillion-dollar economy by 2050. He added that by 2050, he expects the the stock market capitalization tp exceed 40 trillion dollars.
Talking about rapid growth of green energy in the country, he said that the availability of green electron will be the primary driver of a nation’s economic progress, adding that in his opinion the market for the green electron as of now has no growth limits. He said, “We will produce the world’s least expensive green electron that will become the feedstock for several sectors that must meet the sustainability mandate”.
Gautam Adani also talked about investments in building data centres and its role in AI. He said, “At the heart of AI revolution is Data Centre—the critical infrastructure needed to power the computational need of AI systems. AI revolution depends on machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, computer vision, deep learning and a host of other functions, all of which depend on the ability to process data at unprecedented speed and scale – capabilities that data centres provide.”
He said that the data centres need massive amounts of energy making the data centre business the largest energy consuming industry in the world, elaborating how the group’s investments in energy and data centres are complimentary. Gautam Adani said, “The fact is that the infrastructure required for energy transition and infrastructure required for digital transformation are inseparable as the technology sector becomes the largest consumer of precious green molecules. We already have India’s largest order book for data centres and now in discussion for additional gigawatt scale AI data centres.”