Infrastructure for tomorrow

Few sectors have the power to unlock development like infrastructure. Rithwik Ramesh came to realize this during his time studying in the United States.

He completed his degree at Drexel University in Philadelphia and spent two years at UBS in New Jersey before returning to his native India armed with knowledge of corporate best practices. Now, at just 32 years of age, Ramesh manages multiple successful businesses, including one of India’s leading private jet companies, RR Jets; the country’s leading plant-based milk brand, The Alt Company; Hyderabad’s top pickleball and padel club, The Kitchen; and his family business, Rithwik Projects.

As President of Operations at Rithwik Projects, Ramesh is helping realize an ambition shared with his father to bring India’s civil infrastructure into line with the world’s most developed countries.

“Rithwik Projects was founded in 1999, almost 27 years ago, by my father. He had the long-term vision to see that there was so much potential for infrastructure in India,” he tells The CEO Magazine.

“Over the period of 27 years, we started with irrigation as one of the first verticals we had and slowly we ventured into hydro. Hydro is one of our strongest verticals right now.”

Despite this specialization, the company has gradually expanded its reach and now occupies a broad range of subsectors.

“Apart from hydro, we’ve got into railways, highways, mining, urban infrastructure, metros and bridges.” Ramesh explains.

“More specifically on the energy side, we are into pump storage, which is more of a hybrid hydro. We are getting into battery energy storage and we also are into renewables. So it’s a plethora of infrastructure verticals that we are into.”

Supporting India’s growth

India’s growth has been nothing short of spectacular. Since 2006, its economy has more than quadrupled in size, with its nominal GDP in 2024 sitting at US$3.9 trillion – the fifth biggest in the world.

Despite this progress, however, Ramesh explains that further growth is not only possible, but essential.

“India itself is growing at a very rapid pace in terms of infrastructure, especially in urban areas,” he says.

“But if you assess the semi-urban and really rural areas, there is still a lot of infrastructure that needs to come in. For example, compare it to China, we are nowhere near. So there are a lot of areas where there are untapped opportunities and we are very well positioned to capture this market.”

Rithwik Projects’ wide scope equips it well to capitalize on the mass of funding being invested in infrastructure in India.

“At the moment highways are growing so strongly. I think India is building more new highways per kilometer than any other country right now,” Ramesh says.

“Our railway network is also expanding rapidly. Aside from that we have very good technical capabilities in underground and tunneling. We are looking at doing a very interesting project in Bangalore where it is a road tunnel, but it’s a cut and cover tunnel.”

The company’s previous projects connecting the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, with its hostile mountain terrain, gives them the confidence they can fulfill this one.

“We are using amazing design capabilities in Bangalore to execute the project and try to complete it within 18 months, which is a very tight timeline. Also central to the Indian government’s vision of Viksit Bharat 2047 (Developed India 2047) is to make the country environmentally sustainable, which can only be achieved by transitioning to renewable energy.

“We’re also entering a phase of renewable energy, which not only demands new forms of generation, but energy storage too,” Ramesh says. “So since we have very strong hydro capabilities, we’ve focused on energy storage. We are one of the biggest pump storage players in India right now.”

People management

Despite the huge engineering and logistical complexity of delivering vast infrastructure projects, with lives and millions of dollars at stake, Ramesh says the most difficult challenge is dealing with people.

“The main problem that most companies face are the local issues, with stakeholders,” he says.

“These ‘people issues’ that arise are the most challenging to deal with because there is no easy logical solution. Engineering is a logical solution, whereas people are not persuaded by logical solutions, it’s more about an emotional solution. You have to talk to them, see what their problems are.”

As such, Ramesh ensures that he has a member of staff in constant conversation with local stakeholders to ensure their buy-in.

“They might want relatively little things – for example, they might want a job. So we consider how we can create local employment and share some of this wealth creation with them so that they feel part of the project and they feel empowered by it,” he says.

“This is the most difficult part of the project and we continuously try to see how we can get better at it.”

Future focused

Looking to the future, Ramesh believes growth comes from achieving greater efficiency and integrating cutting-edge technology.

“We are going to focus on being able to be more efficient in terms of delivery, as well as pushing for new technology,” he says. “If you don’t leverage the right type of technology, then you’re going to be beaten at this game.”

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Leveraging its strategic partnerships with trusted technology partners, such as Caterpillar India, Sany India and mageba India, is also central to Rithwik Projects and its plans to stay ahead of the competition.

“It’s very important to have effective partnerships and give them confidence, build trust and ensure that they’re growing with you as well,” Ramesh says.

“Our entire project life cycle is optimized because we have a trusted network of people that can go and deliver on our behalf.”

It is thanks to this spirit of collaboration and constant improvement that Indian industry will continue to produce the world-class infrastructure that is powering its development. And Ramesh understands it is a collective of brilliant individuals that are responsible for delivering these extraordinary leaps.

“At the end of the day you need people – really good, experienced people – to take up these tough engineering challenges,” he reflects. “As a company you should focus on being able to grow a strong core team that believes in you, that believes in the company, that believes in the vision and the mission that you’re chasing.”