India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani is the chairman of Reliance Industries Limited and he owns several other businesses like Reliance Retail, Reliance Jio, etc but you would be surprised to know that Mukesh Ambani also owns the largest orchard of mangoes in Asia.
The story of Mukesh Ambani’s decision to set up a mango orchard started in the late nineties when Reliance was facing challenge of massive pollution being caused at its Jamnagar refinery. Reliance received several warnings from the Pollution Control Boards to do something about the huge pollution caused by its refinery and that’s when Mukesh Ambani realized that the time has come to find a solution for this problem and that’s how Reliance decided to set up a mango orchard near the refinery.
Reliance converted the wastelands near the refinery into a green belt and over 1 lakh plants of mangoes of over 200 species were planted in an area of 600 acre. The orchard was named as Dhirubhai Ambani Lakhibag Amrayee, after Mukesh Ambani’s father and Reliance Industries founder Dhirubhai Ambani. The name of orchard was inspired by the mango orchard created by Mughal Emperor Akbar which is called Lakhibag and is in Bihar’s Darbhanga.
“Apart from major Indian varieties such as Kesar, Alphonso, Ratna, Sindhu, Neelam, and Amrapali, we also have foreign ones such as Tommy Atkins and Kent from Florida, US, and Lily, Keitt, and Maya from Israel,” a company spokesperson had once said.
Dhirubhai Ambani Lakhibag Amrayee produces about 127 varieties of mangoes annually and these mangoes are exported too. “Reliance encourages farmers to visit its orchard and learn from the innovative practices being used there. It also distributes 1 lakh free saplings to farmers every year”, a close aide of Mukesh Ambani once said.
