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Gautam Adani, one of the country’s top businessmen, shared on Wednesday some of the events that inspired him to develop an entrepreneurial spirit and do what can transform India.
The people’s struggle for basic amenities in the 1970s and China’s rise in recent decades have left him with a great desire to do whatever he can to make the country stronger. Adani, chairman of the multi-billion dollar Adani Group, said in an exclusive interview with India Today.
Also Read: ‘Lakshman Rekha Between Management and Editors’: How Gautam Adani Commits to Run NDTV
A first-generation entrepreneur, Adani founded the Adani Group in 1988 as a trading company and has now expanded into real estate, ports, airports, power generation, green energy, cement, coal and FMCG.
Adani, now Asia’s richest man, said he was born into a middle-class family and survived the 1970s and 80s when people had to struggle to get electricity, roads and water. That was at a time when India was running huge infrastructure deficits in ports, airports and other areas, the billionaire told Raj Chengappa, group editorial director (publishing) at India Today.
Also read: Gautam Adani says his professional success is not the fault of individual leaders
By contrast, China, which became independent around the same time as India and had lower per capita incomes than India in 1990, began to overtake India in development, Adani said. “All these issues have instilled in me a great desire to do whatever I can to transform India and make it stronger, especially in infrastructure.”
India and China became independent almost at the same time. Until 1990, her per capita income in India was higher than in China, according to the World Bank. But in the decades that followed, the chart reversed, with China now at $12,556 for her and India at just $2,256 for him (figures through 2021).
Adani also reflected on his entrepreneurial journey, saying it all started when Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister, when he first liberalized import and export policies.
For the first time, he said that some items have been added to the OGL (Open General License) list. That’s what helped him start my export business, he said. “But for Rajiv Gandhi, my journey as an entrepreneur would never have taken off.”
When asked about criticism that his glorious rise was attributed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said that his professional success was not due to individual leaders, but to several leaders and governments over a long period of more than three years. He said it was due to policy and institutional reforms initiated by the decades.
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