In his address at the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2020, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani said that the Indian economy will not only rebound but will also grow with unprecedented acceleration. He said that Indian economy will bounce back and become a $5 trillion economy.
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani said on Tuesday, December 8, that the Indian economy will bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic induced blow and prove cynics, who doubt the country’s growth story, wrong by becoming a $5 trillion economy. In his address at the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2020, Ambani said that the economy will not only rebound but will also grow “with unprecedented acceleration.”
The RIL chairman added that there will be a “more equal India… with increased incomes, increased employment, and improved quality of life for 1 billion Indians at the middle and bottom of the economic pyramid.”
Deposing his faith and conviction in the “enormous transformative power of Digital Technologies”, Ambani said that the government’s Digital India Mission has made India “highly resilient in the face of the toughest of adversities.”
“Throughout 2020, India worked online, studied online, shopped online, received healthcare online, socialised online, played online…, simply put, India thrived online,” he noted underscoring the “phenomenal” evolution of digital technology in India.
Presenting four key ideas to further push the country’s digital mission, Ambani said:
As many as 300 million mobile subscribers in India are still trapped in 2G era
Highlighting this as an impediment in the government’s digital push, Ambani pointed out that the Centre needs to take urgent policy steps to ensure that “underprivileged people have an affordable smartphone” in order for them to benefit from Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) into their bank accounts, and actively participate in the digital economy.
India is today among the best digitally connected nations in the world
In order to maintain this lead, the RIL chairman said that policy steps are needed to “accelerate early rollout of 5G” making it affordable and available everywhere. Assuring the government that Reliance Jio will “pioneer” the 5G revolution in India, implementing the service in the second half of 2021, Ambani said that it will be powered by “indigenous-developed network, hardware and technology components.”
5G will enable India to not only participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution but also lead it
Deposing confidence in 5G, the RIL chairman said that Jio platforms are creating “compelling home-grown solutions in education, healthcare, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services, and new commerce.” Each of these solutions, Ambani said, once proven in India, will be offered to the rest of the world to address global challenges.
As the digitalisation of the Indian economy and Indian society picks up speed, demand for digital hardware will grow enormously
Talking about the demand for digital hardware, which is poised to grow staggeringly, the RIL chairman asserted that the country “can’t rely on large-scale imports” in this area of “critical national need.”
Thanking the government’s “focussed efforts”, many global companies, Ambani said, are coming to India to set up manufacturing facilities and that the country has developed world-class strengths in chip design. Foreseeing India becoming a major hub for the state-of-the-art semiconductor industry, the RIL chairman said that, the country’s success in hardware can match its accomplishment in software when all stakeholders work together.
