Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries (RIL), announced investment plans in West Bengal.

Reliance has already invested Rs 15,000 crore in West Bengal – especially for creating the Jio network across the state. Reliance Jio has over 1.2 crore wireless customers in West Bengal. The total population in West Bengal is nearly 9 crore.

Reliance’s investments have trebled employment opportunities in Bengal in two years. Jio initiatives have delivered sustained new employment opportunities ─ both direct and indirect ─ to over 100,000 people in the state.

“We are committing to invest another Rs 5,000 crore in Jio and the entire digital eco-system, Retail and Petro-retail in the next few years,” Mukesh Ambani said speaking at an investor summit in the state.

Jio network covers 1,000 towns and nearly 39,000 villages in the state – reaching almost 98 percent of Bengal’s population. Jio’s 4G coverage will reach 100 percent of Bengal’s population before the end of 2018.

Reliance Jio is also building optic fibre in West Bengal to offer digital services to homes and business.

Jio will also connect every single educational institution and every single hospital in Bengal within the next two years.

Reliance is also setting up Digital Service Centres across India to bring Government to Citizen (G2C) services to all citizens, particularly in the rural hinterland. “We will launch this initiative in five districts of Bengal with immediate effect. It will give birth to digital entrepreneurs in villages and small towns,” Mukesh Ambani said.

Reliance will be working with partners to explore setting up electronics manufacturing facilities in West Bengal for consumer devices such as mobile phones, set-top boxes, and other devices.