Reliance Infrastructure: Building New India

Empires come with tale-telling brimming with intrigue. The combat to conserve their tough forts is as much about sticking to the innumerous moments of longing and revelries they have witnessed as it is about plain logistics. In the very act of reinstating the triumph they have tasted, there are projects that have been left redundant, skills that are no longer valued, knowledge that has gone irrelevant or worse, lost its worth, are made to resonate again.  And this is precisely what Anil Ambani, with all his might trying to do painstakingly. Rightly so, he has now called the shorts to centralise all his energies on restructuring and yield the best results out of it.

Hailing in the list of the largest infrastructure companies, developing projects through various Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) in a number of high growth sectors, such as power, roads, metro rail and airport in the infrastructure space and in the defence sector, even if Reliance Group is walking a rocky road, the number of milestones, it has achieved sets a precedent in the sphere of infrastructure business.

Today, R-Infra stands to be a leading player in providing Engineering, Procurement, and Construction services for developing projects that have direct dealing in power, infrastructure, metro and roads. As a matter of fact, R-Infra is a trailblazing utility company which enjoys presence across the value of chain of power businesses that is generation, transmission, distribution and power trading.

Holding the Fort with its Infrastructure Business:

R-Infra boasts of major presence across the infrastructure space with adeptness in operating and developing airports, metros, rail, roads and real estate. It holds the largest concessionaire under build, operate, transfer (BOT) scheme with 11 road projects of 970 kms, worth Rs 11,500 crore.  Obviously, reeling heavily under the pressure of debts, 9 out of 11 road projects have been set for sale and Anil Ambani, is aiming to raise an amount of Rs. 9000 crores from this asset sale.

Also, Reliance is the first private player in India to execute and operate metro rail projects. Mumbai Metro One of the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar (VAG) corridor is the first rail project in Mumbai that provides east to west connectivity to crores of commuters. It has reduced the travelling time from 120 mins to 21 mins and improved the travelling experience of commuters.

Lighting the lives of millions of Indians through EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction):

The Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) division of the company renders EPC turnkey services in the sectors of infrastructure and power. In fact, EPC provides a one-stop solution to the execution of power plants including project engineering, procurement construction and commissioning for its clients. The division is aptly quipped with the needed know-how and understanding to take up EPC projects and complete them successfully.

Today the division plans to focus on its fast-growing engineering and construction (E&C) business, where its order book has scaled over nine times in last three years to Rs. 28,500 crore right now. Following are the various orders that it has bagged:

• Rs. 7,000 crore Versova-Bandra Sea Link project
•  Rs.  3,647 crore Uppur Thermal Power Project
•  Rs. 1,881 crore National Highway projects from NHAI in Bihar & Jharkhand
•  Rs. 1,585 crore Mumbai Metro Line-4 project
•  Rs. 1,081 crore Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant project

Aside of this, the company’s Delhi DISCOMs distribute power to 42 lakh customers or 70% of Delhi, and serve a peak demand of 5,000 MW. Also, Reliance Mumbai Metro is a marquee project. It has an EBITDA of Rs. 150 crore and, as our chairman Anil D. Ambani has pointed out, given the long concession period, it will be profitable especially as the footfalls are growing exponentially. Furthermore, Reliance Power entered into a power purchase agreement (PPA) and land lease agreement with the Bangladesh government for the power project, gas supply agreement with Titas Gas, a subsidiary of Petro Bangla, and implementation agreement with the Bangladesh’s ministry of power, energy and mineral resources.

Shielding the Nation with Defence Services

Being home to the largest defence services in India, Reliance Defence is the first private sector company in India to obtain the licence and contract to build warships. The company today largely focusing on diversifying its capabilities and ergo has embarked onto long-term strategic partnerships with leading international defence firms like:

·         France’s Dassault Aviation to procure Rafale fighter jets and develop them here in India

·         With Russia for S-400 missile system

Added this, it also has equity stake in existing companies within both in India and abroad to meet home grown solutions for the Defence sector. The company aspires to acquire capabilities and develop in-house expertise in Land based weapon platforms and systems.