Reliance Group which was started by Dhirubhai Ambani has grown so big using political clout, dubious methods, greasing bureaucrats and politicians and even using loopholes in law including international courts.

Books for reference

Ambani & Sons, Polyester Prince by Hamish Macdonald, A Feast by Vultures by Josy Joseph, Gas Wars by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and No Regrets by D.N. Ghosh give different details of their manipulation.

Dubious History

Mr. S. Gurumurthy, presently a director in Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was arrested in 1997 for writing investigative articles on Ambanis at the behest of Goenka of Indian Express as a columnist. Even in 2002, he accused Ambanis of gigantic fraud in allotting shares.

Arbitration always favour them

Their disputes with NTPC is pending in Bombay High Court.

Dispute related to KG D6 Gas is pending in Delhi High Court.

PIL filed in 2013 against the group is still pending. Another case filed in 2011 regarding KG D6 block is still pending.

Case regarding Production Sharing Contract in 2010 is still pending.

Ambani’s went to UK court when Indian courts fined them in a case against BG Exploration & Production Ltd (Associate of Reliance) & Reliance Industries Ltd in English Commercial Court UK.

Many arbitrations are pending.

Reliance officials were arrested for stealing budget papers.

Using money power they keep moving up. The government which favours them does not stop them from going to courts and tribunals and finally the judgments favour Ambani instead of the government.

Anil Ambani

Anil Ambani was a Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha in 2014 which he resigned in 2016 due to disputes. Prime Minister took him to France and got him the Rafael deal.

Mukhesh Ambani

Mukhesh Ambani doesn’t have to be in Parliament because he owns many MPs and he has the Prime Minister with him. PM went to inaugurate their hospital in Mumbai, Inaugurated Reliance Jio and became their poster boy in advertisement and recently took time to visit Mukhesh Ambani’s new born grandchild.

Statements of Dhirubai

Dhirubhai Ambani’s two statements are very important “I don’t violate the laws of the country but I get them changed according to my need”

“Everyone has a price. I am willing to pay it”

So for whom the acts?

Now you can understand for whom ordinance was issued during the pandemic announcing 3 Farm Acts and got it passed without debate in Rajya Sabha and without sending it to Parliament Standing Committee. The farm acts are drafted by the corporates, for the corporates and of the corporates.

Niti Ayog CEO, Amitabh Kant is batting for them and saying there is too much democracy in the country. His solution is to handover everything to 5-6 huge conglomerates. They may be Ambanis, Adanis, Agarwals, Patanjali, Tatas and Birlas.

Wealth

The 63 year old Mukesh Ambani’s wealth is Rs.7 lakh crores. Every hour he adds Rs.95 crores to his wealth.

He lives in a 27 story house at Mumbai city called Antillia which has 3 helipads, 160 car garage, 600 maintenance staff, swimming pools and theatre. He gave a 180 seat capacity Airbus Plane to his wife as birthday gift and spends Rs.70 Lakh as electricity charges per month.

Is it possible for anyone to have this rags to riches story using business acumen?

Gujarat government gave Projects to Ambanis.

The NDA government gave 26% share in public sector India Petrochemicals Ltd through a strategic sale and in few years IPCL was totally taken over by Reliance which became a monopoly.

How big is Reliance?

The turnover of Reliance Industries Ltd last year was Rs.659205 Cr and net worth increased by 15% to Rs.375734Cr. Their major income comes from refining and marking whose revenue is Rs. 385822 Cr and Reliance Retail which had a revenue of Rs. 162936 Cr. The third is petrochemicals with revenue of Rs.145264 Cr, digital Rs. 68462 Cr, media Rs.5357 Cr, exploration & production Rs.3211 Cr. The profit last year was Rs. 44324 Cr before tax.

Reliance has 11784 retail stores with 28.7 million sq.ft area, and has 1.25 million registered customers. 

Jio has 387.5 million customers.

Board of Directors

Reliance has roped in Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, former DG, CSI R, Mr. K.V. Choudhury, former Chairmen CBDT, Mrs. Arundhati Bhattacharya, former Chairman, State Bank of India and many others as directors in their company. You can guess why.

Control over Media

Their reach in media directly is through 56 domestic channels (Network – 18, INX Media, Viacom 18 TV, Colours TV, MTV, Comedy Central, History TV, Nickelodeon, video streaming service of Voot, Infotel a TV consortium which owns 27 channels, CNN news India, 16 International Channels and has a reach of 800 million Indians and covers 95% of TV viewers as per it’s annual report.

Money Control, Forbes India and First Post are also owned by Reliance Group.

The other newspapers and TV channels get advertisement from Reliance.

Now you can understand how media is influenced by Reliance and the real news of what’s happening doesn’t reach the majority. 

Reach of Reliance

Jio solutions cover telecom, financial services, health care including vaccine division, e-commerce, education, media and gaming, agriculture, smart city, government to citizen, marketing, hospitality, broad band, block chain, artificial intelligence, super computing, robotics, drones etc.

Their expansion plan is aimed at merchants, MSMEs and large enterprises.

Health Care

The pharma and health care already has medicine packs, syringes, blood bags, IV packs, bottles, lab coats, masks and PPEs.

Education under control

Mukesh Ambani has announced in the AGM of Reliance that through Jio they are connecting 1.9 million (19 lakh) schools and 58000 colleges. Also claimed 200 million children at the age of 3 and 18 are in the education system. That means the government of India already has given him assurance to take over education. That’s why the New Education Policy.

Huge Debts

The Gross Debt of Mukhesh Ambani’s Reliance Group is Rs.336264 Crores and Debt Equity Ratio is 0.62.1. So they are expanding only with the banks. Every bank in the country has given loans to them.

Is it really Indian

Reliance claims as a company made in India, Made for India ad Made by India but the following foreign companies have shareholding in Reliance.

Facebook                       – Rs. 43574 Cr
Silverlake                       – Rs. 5656 Cr
General Atlantic             – Rs. 6598 Cr
KKR                               – Rs. 11367 Cr
Vista                             – Rs. 11367 Cr
Mubadala                       – Rs. 9064 Cr
Silverlake Co investera    – Rs. 4547 Cr
 Abu Dhabi Inv. Aut          – Rs. 5684 Cr
TPG                               – Rs. 4547 Cr
L. Catterton                   – Rs. 1895 Cr
PIF                               – Rs. 11367 Cr
Total                             – Rs. 115694 Cr

Our public sector LIC has been forced to hold 5.87% of reliance shares.

Reliance has availed huge loans in Japanese Yen, Euro and US Dollar from international finance institutions. Reliance Group also has 59 foreign companies registered abroad. This is their Made in India, Made for India and Made of India.

In Agriculture

The entry of Reliance into agriculture and agri products is done by Reliance Retail, Reliance Fresh, Reliance Smart, Jio mart, Reliance Market, Centura Agro Pvt Ltd, Creative Agro tech Ltd, Fame Agro Pvt Ltd, Pepino farms Pvt Ltd, Rocky farms Pvt Ltd, Avani all Women Grocery Stores and Kannan Departmental Stores. The input for agriculture is given by Jio apps, drones, mulching bags, fertilizers etc. The growth is average 10% per year. Reliance claims to have 80% of the consumer needs in the country. 

Reliance also has 797 grocery stores including women’s grocery stores, Reliance Smart Stores run by NGOs and has entered into drip irrigation, pond linings, crop / fruit cover, sprinklers, mulching and silage bags and Jio Krishi App, Jio Pos Lite, Jiomoney, Jiomart aimed at farmers and farm produce.

The brands of Reliance Agri products are, Good Life, Snactac, Healthy Life, Desi Kitchen, Aarambh, Kafee, Red Farms, Glimmer, Yeah, Get Real, Petals, Safe Life, Graphite, Best Farms, Mopz, Expelz, Home one, Reglow etc.

So you won’t even know which are Reliance Agri Products and buy them.

Reliance states that food and grocery market in India is $545 billion now (Rs.4014682 Cr) and in next 5 years it will reach $850 billion (Rs.6261431 cr)

So they have their vision very clear. Soon they want to own the country. They have 364 registered companies of which 30 are in infrastructure. They have Jio Payment Bank in which SBI is a junior partner. They also have stake in another 186 companies as related parties and 59 companies registered abroad. With a proper plan they have registered 51 more infrastructure companies which are yet to start business as on March 2020.

So the farm laws have been enacted not for farmers but for corporates like Ambani and Adani. Farmers have clearly understood this. They are not mislead, they actually lead.

Life with Ambani Products

Soon you will realize that in the morning you get up from bed with mattress and pillow from Ambanis, use paste and brush from Ambani Group, have Kafee of Ambani, cook everything in Ambani’s kitchen utensils and grocery will be from reliance fresh or your friendly departmental store which actually will be selling Ambani Products, have vaccination from Ambani, use their mask and test your BP using their machines, wash your clothes in Ambani’s washing machine, use Jio internet, phone and TV and watch one of the 72 channels owned by Ambanis.

Adanis

What is left in your life, like your electricity, transportation will be by Adani’s. (A) (Nithi Ayog) CEO says that is good. India only needs few large conglomerates!.

The major loot will be shared by these two persons. We will be at their mercy.  FCI will be handed over completely to Adani (Now 40% of logistics only) public distribution system will come to an end.

How banks will act?

Banks have given so much of loans as stated earlier. To recover them they will ask farmers and traders to have tie up with Ambanis and Adanis to get loan. Farmers will have no option. Small farmers and small traders will disappear. They will become labourers. With new plans on the anvil Ambanis and Adanis will also take over the banks. SBI may become RBI. Reliance Bank of India.

Lessons from US

Few corporates own the entire food supply chain in US where similar laws came into existence some time back. Family farms are being sold. Only 4 companies control the whole market in food named as ABCD Quartet. ADM, Bungee, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus. They control the prices.

Global Hunger

We are ranked 94^th among 107 countries in the Global Hunger Index. Without PDS we will be the worst affected. Massive malnutrition and deaths will occur.

Lies and Half Truths

The lies and half-truths told by our PM and his ministers cannot answer this.  They are his masters voice. Farmers have clearly understood.

Appeal to Prime Minister

The question is Modiji why you stand between Ambani, Adani and the people.  Make them Prime Minister and Finance Minister. You become President.  

You can take care of the peacocks, leopards and deer and sign on the dotted line proclaiming many more ordinances.

The farmer leaders can at least negotiate with them instead of the ministers who do not have any power to decide.

Thomas Franco is former General Secretary of All India Bank Officers’ Confederation.