Sajjan Jindal stands out starkly among India Inc. The 65-year-old chairman of the JSW Group has lined up huge investments across sectors. The Mumbai-headquartered diversified conglomerate’s big capital expenditure (capex) plans are a silver lining amid dark clouds of private capex almost running dry.

Last March, the JSW Group forayed into the automobile sector by forming a joint venture with China’s largest carmaker SAIC Motor. The JV – JSW MG Motor India – has scheduled a launch of its own electric vehicles (EVs) by 2027. Then, at the beginning of 2025, the over
Rs 1,70,000-crore JSW Group announced that it would invest
Rs 3,00,000 crore across critical sectors in Maharashtra. The investments range from expanding its presence in EVs, batteries, steel and green energy sectors.

The capex programme includes expansion and enhancement of steel manufacturing capacities with clean and green technologies; launching pioneering green energy projects for a sustainable future; setting up advanced manufacturing units for new-age EVs, high-performance lithium-ion batteries and solar wafer and cell modules.

Later, in February 2025,
Mr Jindal’s business conglomerate lined up Rs 1,20,000-crore across a wide range of sectors in Karnataka. The capex programme has slotted Rs 43,000 crore to expand JSW Steel’s Vijayanagar plant with advanced technologies and tools like AI, and robotics, among others. The investment also involves acceleration of solar and wind energy and green hydrogen and expansion of its cement and paint production capacities.

Mr Jindal is not bucking the trend only in terms of investments. It has been a very inherent quality of the JSW Group chief to swim against the tide. Betting on new technologies and being adventurous have been a part and parcel of his life, and this perhaps has helped him achieve success almost every time.

Mr Jindal’s adventurous streak was at display, perhaps for the first time, way back in 1982. Fresh out of Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, after graduating in mechanical engineering, young Sajjan joined the OP Jindal Group as a manager. Within two years, he was asked by his father, the late O P Jindal, to head to Mumbai and look after the group’s operations in the western region.

Mr Jindal was asked to turn around the two loss-making steel plants near Mumbai. Working side by side with his engineers on the shopfloor and banking on new technologies, the two plants were brought back into the black.

His biggest bet was perhaps setting up a mega steel plant, equipped with ultra-modern technologies, in Vijayanagar near Bellary in Karnataka in 1994. Over the years, JSW Steel has become the country’s third-largest steel company by production. Besides, JSW is the fourth-largest paint-maker after acquiring Indian operations of Akzo Nobel recently and is also a major cement company. Mr Jindal is now all set to drive out the group’s first EV in the next two years.

The road ahead is certainly not smooth, and Mr Jindal knows it very well. Growing protectionism and Mr Trump’s tariffs have turned the world upside down. Mr Jindal – a strong votary of robust domestic manufacturing and domestic supply chains – could be ready with a gameplan to emerge out of the turmoil.