RIL's Jamnagar refinery is a rich well of talent

If they had migrated to a big city, they might have ended up fixing a drainage pipe or welding a broken gate. But thousands of young, untrained workers from around the country chose to go to a dry coastal town in Gujarat. More than two years later, the decision has proved fruitful. They are not only making the best money, they have also learnt skills that will help them get good jobs in future. Jamnagar, the jewel of Kathiawar, has a rich royal history, but over the past decade, its name has become synonymous with a large-scale petroleum refinery that Reliance Industries runs there. In 1990s, construction of the refinery producing 660,000 barrels a day, had brought about an unprecedented industrial transformation. Today, the buzz has returned as Reliance is putting up another refinery, with a capacity of 580,000 barrels, to make the place the world’s single-largest refinery complex. When the gigantic project began two years ago, the biggest challenge that the company faced was how to find 80,000 skilled workers and engineers needed to execute it? “While commissioning India’s biggest refinery in Jamnagar in 1990’s, RIL had experienced an acute shortage