Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited Mukesh Ambani on Monday promised to invest an additional Rs 3,000 crore in Odisha.

Addressing the business summit, he said that Reliance, one of the largest investors to the state in the last few years, has already invested more than Rs 6,000 crore in Odisha. It has “created and sustained new employment opportunities of more than 30,000 people in the last two years in the state”.

“Reliance and Jio are dependable partners in your Make in Odisha mission as well as in your Make in Odisha vision,” he said. Focusing on digital India, the telecom industry magnate said that Jio had connected all the cities and towns, and 43,000 villages in Odisha. In the past eight months, several million villagers in Odisha have got affordable smartphones.

“Our aim is to take the power of digital life to every nook and corner of the state, particularly in rural Odisha,” he said. “Our investment philosophy has a clear goal — to empower everyone in the march of development. Most of our investments are in creating the digital infrastructure,” said Ambani.

He further said that Reliance was working with the Odisha government on an initiative to integrate several lakh women in the digital mainstream under the Mission Shakti scheme, which is being implemented for women empowerment.

He said that the Reliance was also partnering with the state government to set up the Reliance Foundation Odisha High Performance Athletics Centre. “This centre will train local talent under world renowned experts to develop them into Olympic medal winners of tomorrow,” he said.

At the outset of his speech, Ambani offered his respects to Lord Jagannath and visited Puri in the afternoon. “He had come alone and had darshan of Lord Jagannath. He gave an invitation card for his daughter’s marriage to offer it to the Lord. I went inside and offered it to the Lord,” said his priest Raghunath Gocchikar.

Ambani also had darshan of the Goddess Laxmi.