Gautam Adani reveals how the 1970s and China shaped his entrepreneurial vision

Gautam Adani, one of the top industrialists in the country, on Wednesday shared a few events that prompted him to get into entrepreneurship and do things that can transform India. 

The people's struggle for basic amenities in the 1970s and the rise of China in the last few decades instilled a huge desire in him to do whatever he could to make the country stronger, Adani, the Chairman of the multi-billion-dollar Adani Group, said in an exclusive interview with India Today.

Also Read: 'Lakshman rekha between management, editorial': How Gautam Adani promises to run NDTV

A first-generation entrepreneur, Adani founded the Adani Group in 1988 as a trading company, which has now expanded into real estate, ports, airports, power generation, green energy, cement, coal, and FMCG.

Adani, now the richest person in Asia, said he was born in a middle-class family and lived through the 1970s and 80s when people had to struggle for power, roads, and water. That was a time when India had a huge infrastructure deficit in ports, airports, and other areas, the billionaire told Raj Chengappa, Group Editorial Director (Publishing) at India Today.  

Also Read: Gautam Adani says his professional success is not because of any individual leader

In contrast, China, which also became independent around the same time as India and had a lower per capita income than India in 1990, began leapfrogging ahead of India in development, Adani said. "All these issues instilled a huge desire in me to do whatever I could to transform India, particularly in infrastructure, and make India stronger."

India and China got independence around the same time. As per the World Bank, India's per capita income was higher than China's till 1990. However, the graph reversed in the subsequent decades with China now having $12,556 and India just $2256 (figure till 2021).  

Adani also looked back on his entrepreneurial journey and said that it all began during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister when he first liberalised the Exim policy. 

For the first time, he said several items were brought into the OGL (Open General License) list. That was what helped him to start my export house, he said. "But for Rajiv Gandhi, my journey as an entrepreneur would never have taken off."

When asked about the criticism that his meteoric rise was because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said his professional success was not because of any individual leader but because of the policy and institutional reforms initiated by several leaders and governments during a long period of over three decades.