Welcome to NDTV's Walk the Talk. I'm Rahul Kanwal. I'm currently in Kolkata which is caught in the midst of an election frenzy. As we hear the political parties stake their claims, I want to spend time talking about what West Bengal needs for a bright industrial future. Both the BJP and the Trinamool are talking a lot about new industrial policy in Bengal, but what really do the practitioners require on the ground? To get a sense of that, I'm currently at the RPSG house in Kolkata in front of this lovely Rabindranath Tagore installation, and I have with me the scion of one of the longest-serving industrial families in West Bengal. Their family has been here for the last 200 years. Dr. Sanjiv Goenka, welcome and thank you so much for taking our time for NDTV's Walk the Talk.
It's an absolute pleasure to be here talking. Always a privilege to be with you.
We're hearing so much, Dr. Goenka, from the political parties about what West Bengal needs when it comes to industry. You know, as the one family that's actually here in Kolkata, a lot have moved on to other parts of the country. If you were imagining a new industrial policy for your home state, you know, what are the kind of things you think the new government in West Bengal needs to keep in mind so Kolkata becomes competitive like a Bangalore or a Mumbai or a Gujarat?
The first thing really is consistency of policy. Not policies being changed every few years. Bengal doesn't have goonda laws, dadas, which were a feature of Bengal's past, and that is something that's completely gone out of the system. So those are not issues. But I think overall as a state, we need to believe that we can get to the top again. And I think somewhere we need to instill that sense of confidence and self-belief that Bengal is capable of getting back at the top.
We've seen in recent years, you know, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, even emerging states like Assam try and bring a lot of new industry to their states. What would it take for West Bengal to be able to be competitive when it comes to the Indian Federation?
Today every state is vying for investments, right? So it's about actually being a better place to invest than some others. So it's not too difficult to get a McKinsey or a BCG or an Accenture to do a very quick analysis and say what is required. And fundamentally, people must believe that policies are going to be consistent. And frankly, when you have policies like the urban land ceiling, the only state to have it at this point in time, not the best thing to have around.
The other big challenge, of course, is migration of the youth. A lot of young Bengalis going to places like Mumbai, Bangalore, elsewhere working over there. How does one change that? You've got young children, relatively young children. For people their generation and younger to stay back and be part of a new Bengal dream rather than just take the first flight out and say it's just much easier for me to be working elsewhere.
You know, I can speak for my family and my son Shashwat and my daughter-in-law Shivika were both given the option to move to Bombay or Delhi, and Shivika comes from Singapore, but they're both very happy living here. So as far as we are concerned, we are very happy to be domiciled in Kolkata as a family and happy being here.
You know, we're talking at a time when the world finds itself in the midst of the biggest oil shock, energy crisis, global economic uncertainty. How are conglomerates like yours dealing with the uncertainty around when this war ends, how long it goes on for, and the ripple effects it has on companies like yours?
Undeniably there is an impact, and those companies, we have one company where fuel is an important raw material and therefore it's a huge impact on that. But frankly, there is also confidence that somebody like Narendra Modi, he leads us and sure.
Yes and no. Because while of course the government can try what it will, and a lot of this is frankly out of the government's control, and therefore you're having to respond and react to actions of the Israeli side, the Americans, the Iranians, which are having an impact on the Indian economy. You know, you're also in the retail business, apart from a whole host of other consumer-facing businesses. Are you seeing that impact already in terms of consumers holding back on purchase?
I think there is some impact and people are wanting to conserve resources and capital. But as far as we are concerned, yes, we do realize that two or three months will be challenging. But it's about this whole India story, it's about the great potential that India has. And yes, two months or three months or four months, who's to say, will impact us. But these two or three or four months cannot be defining in the career of a company. And as I said earlier, the confidence is that when you have a Narendra Modi at the helm of affairs, he will make sure that India gets its due soon enough.
Dr. Goenka, there's never a good time for war, but this war comes at a particularly inopportune time from the Indian economy's perspective because post the budget, it just seemed that the Indian economy was poised for a takeoff in terms of capacity expansion, industrial production, and the economy seemed in a good space. Do you see the consequences of the war being relatively short-term, or do you think this could drag on for several years if not just for a few quarters?
I don't think it's going to be very long term.
Not the war. I'm saying the consequences of the war.
The consequences also I don't think will be very long-term. But frankly, it's difficult to forecast how it's going to impact us on a medium-term basis. There is a short-term impact, of course, and it's going to impact everything in terms of the company's performances. But I think going forward, the faith in India, in the Indian consumer, in the Indian market, in the Indian ecosystem is so high that I think it's going to bounce back. And for us, we have one set of businesses which are impacted because they are based on fuel and therefore the prices are impacted. So therefore there is an impact there. But in most of our other businesses, it's not really impacting us. For example, the power distribution business, it doesn't impact us. In the renewable energy business, it doesn't impact us. In the BPO business, it doesn't impact us. In the music business, it doesn't impact us. In the film production business, it doesn't impact us. So you know, having a diversified portfolio is actually proving to be an advantage at this situation.
You'd announced a lot of capacity expansion, new industrial projects across the country from Uttar Pradesh to Gujarat, Rajasthan. Does the war and the uncertainty that it comes with, you know, push some of those plans back, or are you just bashing on regardless?
We are going ahead. We've got about 72,000 crores of projects under implementation across Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra. And we are going ahead completely, going ahead. So they are in diverse fields, but it's something that we are very excited about. And our target is that in the next four years, it was three, it's now become four because the war we believe would set us back by a bit. Our EBITDA is about just over 8,000 crores to get to 20,000 crores. We have a complete and in place block-by-block action, and that's what we monitor. And as I said, we might be a few months behind, but we'll get there.
So let's talk a bit about the different components of that plan. I want to start with business process outsourcing, the BPO industry where you made an acquisition. For a long while it seemed was doing very well, and now of course there's the threat of AI and what this means for the BPO sector. So do you want to talk to our viewers about, you know, the threat that AI poses to the BPO industry in India and in the company that you've acquired? How you're trying to deal with this?
You know, AI is actually an opportunity. So I'll give you an example. It doesn't necessarily illustrate, but it does to an extent. For example, all the HR interviews that we do now, all interviews that we do are not physical, they are not personal, they are done by robots. I mean, they are done by AI, and at the end of the interview, you get a complete analysis.
How do you know the AI is not biased, or how do you know the AI doesn't pick out the candidate?
So that is where you need to then eventually, the AI will shortlist maybe three candidates. You meet the three, and those you still do physically, but you're no longer meeting 30 or 40, so you're saving on those costs. A lot of the routine legal documents are now happening through AI.
Are you hiring better because of artificial intelligence being involved in the process in a big way?
I think you're getting much better research. In the past, you sort of called up a few people and took references. Here you're getting a complete analysis of that candidate's performance over the last 15, 20 years, or 10 years as the case might be. And then you can ask AI, and you can ask Claude, and say give us a prompt, I mean, give us a lead on how he's done competitively, and you get that.
A lot has been said, Dr. Goenka, about the impact of this war on the long-term energy consumption patterns of consumers across the world. Are you going to see, you think, a big pivot from fossil fuels to more renewable energies just as a consequence of this war accelerating the trends that we already seeing in the past?
I think whether as a consequence of the war or otherwise, a huge proportion of energy consumption will shift to renewable, whether it's solar, wind, hybrid, prompted by battery, the combination. I think that's going to happen, and you will probably see, say, India maybe 40, 50% of the total energy consumption over a period of time shifting to renewable and green energy. And that's a trend that we are ourselves embracing, and we have a plan of about 10 GW of capacity over the next five, six years. And we've just started a solar module plant in Rajasthan. We are working on a complete solar cell plant in Uttar Pradesh and Odisha. So I think you're going to see a lot of energy. We're looking at getting into battery. We've started with battery components, and our plan for nanosilicon actually goes on stream in the next few weeks. So I think there is a lot happening overall, and there's a lot happening at RPSG.
But a lot of the critical components involved in the renewable ecosystem are largely dominated by the Chinese supply chains. How do you think a country like India should try and overcome that given how late we are as players in this game?
You know, one thing that I've learned is that you can be a latecomer, but it doesn't mean that you've lost out. So, for example, the IPL has taught me that you can lose your first five games, but you can still end up qualifying for the playoffs. So, it's a learning. So yes, we are late, but I think we are catching up very fast as a country, as a nation. And so you will see India at the forefront of the energy transition.
That's a good segue to, you know, all the acquisitions that you've done in the field of sports. And I'm told that there are a whole bunch of Mohun Bagan players who are all teed and kitted up waiting to meet you. So, let's just go and say hello to them.
We've now moved to the residence of Dr. Sanjiv Goenka. I see some of the Mohun Bagan players there practicing. They're doing some drills. Now, this finds you in a very interesting situation. You've got a champion football team, reigning champions since you bought them, five times they won. And you've got the Lucknow Super Giants who have been struggling, and I can see you getting visibly frustrated with their performance.
Well, I think in football we've, hopefully we know what we need to do. I think we're still not quite there in cricket. Last year it was our bowling that needed fixing. So we fixed our bowling and retained the batting, but this year we still have to fire. So hopefully.
So what's the football code that you've cracked which you haven't cracked yet when it comes to cricket?
Rahul, if I knew it, I would have implemented it, you know.
But you know that you've been in the center of so much attention, not all of it very good, with, you know, what happened with KL Rahul earlier, now Rishabh. Why don't you tell our viewers what in the world happened? So much chatter in terms of Dr. Goenka.
You know, with Rishabh there has never been a tense situation ever.
Social media, this is social media noise. It gets them views, right? Sanjiv punching bag. And one incident doesn't define a person. And when you make mistakes, you learn, and you learn not to repeat them. So I think the dressing room is happy, the team is happy, the environment is happy. I don't think those are issues. But Sanjiv Goenka has become a very convenient punching bag. You get views if you say Sanjiv Goenka.
But it's an interesting phenomenon. Top corporate owning a cricket team, and therefore naturally so much the center of attention. All over, see what happens at Kolkata Knight Riders doesn't really matter to the public. Out of the BCCI, of course, people are upset, or beyond that, doesn't matter. Any step, misstep, hand gesture, movement on and off the cricket field then becomes a national headline.
Yeah, excepting that I'm now learning that even, you know, I am a person who naturally talks with gestures, so I'm now learning to keep my hands behind, you know, because everything, and you can take an angle out of context. You can, there are so many morphed versions, there are so many AI-generated versions. But that's it, I mean, what can I do? I can only be myself, and at the end of the day, I'm fairly clear of being me.
How do you want to respond to all those critics or naysayers who think that you're interfering in sporting affairs or telling your cricketers how to play, you know, because this has been doing the rounds. How would you address this concern? What do you make of it?
I mean, for a person who's never really played cricket, it would be foolish to tell my cricketers how to play, right? I have a team of experts, and it's a big team. Of course, who does that? I want the team to do well. I want them to succeed. I'm passionate about the team. I'm passionate about cricket. But I don't understand cricket the way an expert does. And it would be stupid on my part to go and give cricketing lessons to the cricketers.
But where you've done well is in terms of how the business has grown in valuation since you bought it. Because when you came in, you came in at the highest price point at that time, and lots of questions were asked about inflated valuations. Since then, it's more than doubled. So, forget how the team has done on the cricket field, off the cricket field, you've done quite well, and congratulations for that.
Thank you. I think I'm very happy. I've invested 1,800 crores to date, and the value today would probably be 14, 15, I don't know, whatever, 1,000 crores.
That's doing better than most of your businesses in terms of how the valuations have grown.
And I've always maintained that for passion you invest so much only, the rest is business. And so this has been one of my best business appreciations in the shortest possible time. And I was fairly confident of it, and that's why I invested. And I'm very happy that Rajasthan and Bangalore got now. There's a lot of clutter. Earlier this was the rarity. Now all the big corporate teams, all the big corporate houses. So you're competing for business, and you're competing on the field as well.
You know, you compete on the field, but you're friends off the field.
So yesterday I was having a good chat with Aman and Satyan. There have been instances where Sajjan Jindal and I have watched the Delhi-Lucknow game together, and you know, it really is a sport. You will win some, you will lose some, and you know, there are good relations all around.
