Anil Agarwal on Infrastructure Building

In a 2016 Hindu interview at his Worli sea-facing bungalow, Agarwal — then 62 — was framed as the school dropout from Patna who had built a $13 billion resource conglomerate spanning oil, copper and aluminium. At the time, Vedanta had invested $35 billion in India, of which $10 billion sat in Odisha alone, with returns still partly unrealized — bets Agarwal described as 100-year projects rather than near-term plays.

The Odisha plant was running at only 40% capacity at the time of the interview, with Agarwal projecting 80-90% utilization in 6-8 months pending bauxite access. He contrasted India's 3.5% bauxite exploration rate with the West's 73%, framing the gap as both opportunity and policy failure — Vedanta positioned as the operator ready to close it if government released the resource.

Agarwal disclosed plans to invest Rs 30,000 crore in Cairn India and another Rs 15,000 crore across iron ore, copper, zinc and aluminium in two years. The strategic ambition: lift Cairn India's output from 230,000 barrels per day (30% of India's crude) to 350,000 bpd (50% of national production) — a stated goal of producing half of India's oil, hence the interview's headline.