Mumbai: Gautam Adani applied for admission at Mumbai’s Jai Hind College in the late 1970s but was rejected. On Thursday, the Chairman of the Adani Group delivered an inspiring lecture to students on Teachers’ Day at the same college.
Sharing this information, Vikram Nankani, President of the Jai Hind College Alumni Association, introduced Gautam Adani to deliver the lecture.
“Fortunately or unfortunately, the college did not accept him and he went on to work full time and pursued an alternative career,” Nankani told the gathering, declaring Gautam Adani as a “deemed alumni” since he had applied to join.
Gautam Adani had moved to Mumbai at age 16 and started working as a diamond sorter. And the rest is history. He turned to business and went on to build a more than $220 billion empire.
During his lecture at the college, Gautam Adani said this institution, born from the ashes of India’s partition, is a great example of the resilience of the human spirit.
“I find it fascinating that, 75 years ago, two visionary professors from the D.J. Sind College in Karachi laid the foundation for this institution in two tiny rooms. Despite the immense challenges and human displacement happening during the partition of our country, they dreamed of a future where the force of education could heal and unite,” said Gautam Adani.
Sharing his life story, the Chairman of the Adani Group said it was Mumbai that taught him that “To think big, you must first dare to dream beyond your boundaries”.
“Just as I was turning 19, I was called back by my elder brother to assist in running our small-scale PVC film factory situated near Ahmedabad. The business was faced with many challenges primarily due to extreme government control and restrictive import policies, leading to severe shortages of raw materials. This was my first real encounter with the limitations of the business environment in India,” shared Gautam Adani.
By the time he turned 23, the trading venture was doing well.
“And my third major break was about to come – one that would propel us into a new orbit. In 1995, the Gujarat government announced its port-led industrial development plan through public-private partnerships,” said Gautam Adani.
Around that time, he was approached by the global commodities trader Cargill. It was a proposal to partner for manufacturing and sourcing salt from the Kutch region. While the partnership did not materialise, “we were left with about 40,000 acres of marshy land and approval to build a captive jetty at Mundra for the export of salt. What others saw as marshy barren land, we saw as a canvas waiting to be transformed. That canvas is now by far our nation’s largest port”, Gautam Adani said.