Mamata Banerjee speaking at the concluding day of the Bengal Global Business Summit
Pranav Adani, who is the nephew of Adani Group chief Gautam Adani, was virtually the chief guest today at Mamata Banerjee's mega event to draw investments and promised to double the group's existing investment of Rs 750 crore in West Bengal to Rs 1500 crore in the next five years. He was the only industrialist to speak at the second and concluding day of the Bengal Global Business Summit.
Mamata Banerjee, clearly seized of the fact that the political optics of his participation at the summit was unmissable and much would be read between the lines, personally thanked him in her concluding speech. "Thank you Pranav for coming here and showing interest in Bengal, " she said, calling Mr Adani by his first name.
Mr Adani, whose investments have mostly been in the food processing sector so far, has said his group would like to replicate a Mundra-like port in West Bengal. He also said the group wanted to explore possible investments in renewable energy. The group will also increase the capacity of an edible oil producing factory at Haldia.
Pranav Adani heads the agri-business and oil and gas verticals as managing director and is known for initiating many new business opportunities. He also heads the real estate and global coal businesses of the Group.
On the first day of the summit, top industrialists promised Rs 17,000 crore in investments in West Bengal, mostly within the next four years. That includes Rs 5,000 crore from Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, whom Ms Banerjee had met in Mumbai in October and invited to attend the event.
The summit has drawn investment proposals worth Rs 2,19,925 crore, said West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra, adding that such a scale of investment would create about 20 lakh jobs.