Prof. M. M.

Sharma, Ex Director, UDCT

Mukesh, Anil, members of the Ambani family, office bearers of the association, ladies
and gentlemen, I would like to pay my unabashed tributes to our dear native, grass
roots genius, polyman Dhirubhai. He epitomised knowledge is vision and vision is
knowledge. And progress is the most important product. He had an incredible
uncanny knack of getting at the essence of any proposal. His razor sharp ability
could find a breezy corridor in a wild forest of rules and regulations. His responses
were faster than a wink. He was a legend in his own lifetime.

He dared to think big and was rewarded amply in so many ways. He rose like a
colossus. He radically changed the fundamentals of business and polymers. He
created an initial daily capacity in polyester filaments, which was roughly equivalent
to the annual capacity of the pioneers. Polypropylene in one go at 400,000 tons per
annum in contrast to a capacity of 30,000 tons per annum at IPCL, Vadodara in late
70s, which at that time was considered as a princely capacity. PP is now at 1 million
tons per annum and before long, I hope as the patriarch had very enthusiastically
endorsed, should go to 2 million tons per annum.

There is no company in the world which has integration from oil and gas prospecting
to petroleum refining to petrochemicals to polymers to filaments, fibres, resins and
finally to fabrics. Only Reliance. The speed and the cost at which the projects were
executed at Patalganga and Hazira have no parallels in the world. And of course, the
magnum opus is the Jamnagar refinery and petrochemicals. This is the world’s
largest grassroots refinery with the highest capacity cat cracker that too in the
petrochemical mode rather than in the fuels mode, which is close to about 200,000
barrels per day, translating to 10 million tons per annum, more than the combined
capacity of all units in India. Link this with one of the highest capacity coker of the
world, processing almost 160,000 barrels a day, equivalent to about 8 million tons
per annum, with full valourisation of products. Even more the 1.7 million tons per
annum xylene plant, predominantly paraxylene is the highest capacity in the world
and with full value added utilisation of hydrogen.

Couple all the above with a very astute financial engineering and surely we have a
tornado. Isn’t this mind boggling right in front of us before we realise it’s impact? A
charming verdant atmosphere has been created in the arid Jamnagar. Very soon
from the highway you would not be able to see the refinery. I’ve reasons to believe
that the Jamnagar refinery in the next 3 to 4 years will go to 1 million barrels per day,
translating to 50 million tons per annum, an extraordinary capacity of LPG. Perhaps 5
million tons per annum, so much needed for cooking in rural and semi rural areas of
India.

The kind of performance that we are talking about has had no parallels in India. The
above projects will unquestionably be a handsome tribute to the departed soul. We
expect the turnover of the Reliance group to cross, within the next three years,
100,000 crores a year.
An acquisition of the IPCL which fortunately happened while Dhirubhai was alive and
he was so enthusiastic about the whole acquisition and I had the great pleasure of
seeing his face in a radiant way after this acquisition and this will further add to the
endeavours of the Reliance.

I’m absolutely certain that the Reliance flag will fly high in a reliant way in the most
competent hands of Mukesh and Anil who compliment each other’s talents with the
heavenly blessings from Dhirubhai. It is a pity that the highest civilian honour was not
bestowed on him for so many revolutionary changes he brought out, which benefited
more than 30 million people directly and many more indirectly.

Every person in the street seems to know the miracle called Dhirubhai. I pray that his
soul rest in peace.