Very wise of RIL to enter IT and telecom: SC Tripathi, Former Petroleum Secretary

In an interview with ET Now, SC Tripathi, Former Petroleum Secretary, gives his views on the RIL AGM. Edited excerpts:

You have been a long time watcher of RIL this is not a story that has been told as far as the petrochemical and oil and gas business is concerned, this is a story about telecom, about data, about information and you have said they are doing to telecom what they did to oil and gas. Why do you say that?

SC Tripathi: I have been watching Reliance Industries since 1980 and I have been very impressed with their developments and with their progress and their evolution from a small company to a global giant. I am particularly impressed by the fact that RIL attaches a lot of importance to two or three things: one is that they want to build world class capacities, two they want to have world’s best technology and three, they are very aggressive in marketing. It started with petrochemicals and now they are the largest petrochemical unit in India and at the first position. They are also number two in many segments in the world. In refining they became very efficient and became among the largest. However, these two sectors which are still giving them lot of revenues and profits are not sunrise sectors. In the last five to ten years, in developed countries the consumption of petrochemicals and refining products has not gone up, it is only in developing countries where it is going up. Hence I think it is very wise on their part to have entered information technology and telecom.