‘No one in their right mind’: Gautam Adani recalls Mundra Port’s early days

Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani on Friday went back to the 1990s, when Mundra Port was still a risky idea, to recall how the project first took shape.

Speaking after Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) crossed 500 million tonnes of cargo, Adani shared a personal memory of driving overnight from Ahmedabad to Mundra with Malay Mahadevia.

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“I still remember driving overnight in an old Contessa from Ahmedabad to Mundra, with [Mahadevia] beside me,” he said.

At the time, he noted, there were barely any roads leading to the site. “No one in their right mind would have driven through the night to Mundra, which looked less like the future of ports and more like a giant, endless mass of land at the western border of India,” he added.

Mahadevia would sing through the journey to keep him awake, he recalled, adding with a laugh: “His intentions were good, but even friendship has its limits.”

The anecdote, Adani said, reflected the mindset they started with — young, optimistic, and not fully aware of failure.

“We were in our late twenties. At that age, you don’t fully understand failure. And sometimes, that’s exactly what gives you the courage to try what others call impossible,” he said.

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That leap of faith, he added, became the foundation of the group’s growth story.

“Mundra was the spark. This spark became the nucleus of APSEZ. APSEZ then became the nucleus of the Adani Group, and the Adani Group became the nucleus for Indian infrastructure,” he said.

The scale-up that followed was just as striking.

“It took us 16 years to reach our first 100 million metric tonnes. But from there, we went from 100 million tonnes to 500 million tonnes in just the next 12 years,” Adani said.