Well ive some of my own assumptions on how reliance is such a big entitiy today.in early 70-80s business houses had a obsesseion for large projects , the larger the projects the more the business houses goodwill is . perhaps that was one of the reasons dhirudhabi build reliance to such a scale. secondly there were not many good scrips in share market those days are the business houses in those days didnt had any concern for investors.
Leave alone the stock market was not considered a viable earning to be for retail investors until reliance was listed.thirdly the pertoleum business was build more for the purpose of backward intergration that is to build raw material on their own thus reducing costs.and mind you every business house lobbies with govt and tries to circumvert the policies in its favour so theres nothing wrong in what reliance did .Now as far as present day is concerend , reliance too is facing compeitition .
Its not that now they are the only giants. the textile business is no more a attractive industry. petroleum is in doldrums thanks to govt policies and enterance of the big guns( chevron, bp, shell).that is why they are so bullish on retail as it is one industry which is in nascaent stage in india. but well have to see how does reliance fares agianst competition ??till then its business as usual.............