UNI

Washington, Jul 10: Newsweek magazine's international edition has devoted a full length cover story on Mukesh Ambani, describing him as India's most influential businessman and one who thinks bigger than the rest.

The latest edition of the news magazine which will hit the stands on July 17 says ''India's top tycoon hopes to kick the country's nascent boom into hyperdrive by re-making its stores, farms and even its biggest cities''.

It said Ambani was all that even before a bitter internal feud led to a split in his family conglomerate. The breakup, finalized in January, left him in control of the larger (and largely etrochemical) share, Reliance Industries, and that behemoth has seen its fortunes soar ever since.

Calling him ''India's M. Big Idea'', the cover story written by the magazine's Southeast Asia Correspondent Ron Moreau and Special Correspondent Sudip Mazumdar, says Ambani, 49, has finalized plans to invest more than 11 billion dollar over the next decade to build two new satellite cities outside Mumbai and Delhi.

Ambani plans, according to the storty, to invest five billion dollar by 2011 to put both farms and stores on the road to modernity, connect them through a distribution system guided by the latest logistics technology and create enough of a surplus to generate 20 billion dollar in agricultural exports annually.

If his plan succeeds, it says, consumers will get fresher food at lower prices, rural incomes will soar, farmers will become active consumers and Reliance will become ''a Wal Mart in India''.

The agricultural export boom will bring India's farmers into the global economy, as IT has done for its college grads. ''We are rebalancing the world,'' says Ambani in the story. ''We are in fact lucky to be at the right place at the right time, contributing to our self-confidence as Indians. That's what energizes me.'' It's a vision in which everyone wins, which helps explain the silence of any doubters.

According to the story, Ambani's favourite scheme aims to revolutionize in one swoop two of India's largest but most backward sectors: farming and retail.

In China, these plans would be hatched by the Communist Party. In India, the government is neither visionary nor efficient enough. But Mukesh Ambani is both. ''This new business model excites me the most,'' said Ambani in an exclusive interview to Newsweek. Ambani is not the only major Indian entrepreneur who sees India's farmers as an army of opportunity, either. Others are investing heavily in fruit and vegetable exports to Europe, information services for farmers and consumer credit in the countryside, the story said.

What unites them is both pursuit of profit and a perhaps uniquely Indian mission to spread the wealth, which is arguably becoming a business necessity in a democracy whose growing income gap could prove explosive, particularly for the superrich.

What distinguishes Ambani is the sweep of his plans and a track record for making big projects happen, the story said.

Ambani wants to build a chain of both small and supersize stores across India, creating one million jobs and reaching 25 billion dollar in annual sales, all by 2011.

The magazine says Ambani's farm-to-retail team is researching every step of the plan, from vegetable growing to hypermarket versus mom-and-pop retailing. The good news is that the backwardness of Indian farming conceals competitive advantages -- for example, India has more arable land than any other country, and spans climate zones ranging from alpine to tropical that can grow any cash crop.

The bad news, says Ambani, is that ''the whole supply chain is totally disorganized.'' Because of a lack of storage, refrigeration and transportation, some 40 percent of India's fruit and vegetables spoils before reaching market.

To transform Indian farmers into quality suppliers for his new retail chain, Ambani plans to create 1,600 farm-supply hubs across India, providing technical know-how and credit, selling seeds, fertilizer and fuel, and buying produce. He also plans to build some 85 logistics centers to move food to retail outlets and to ports and airports for export, the story said.

Reliance is gearing up to train tens of thousands of new employees in the next six to eight months to do everything from erecting prefab warehouses to transporting fresh produce, the Newsweek article says.