Congress exposes Gujarat govt’s special favour to Adani Power

by Rizwan Raza

New Delhi. In a sensational revelation, the Congress party today exposed the massive loot and robbery of public money in Gujarat with the Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL), having paid about Rs 3,900 crores extra to the Adani Power Mundra (APM), owned by Gautam Adani during last five years, without getting any relevant and required documents from the company.

The party asked whether the Enforcement Directorate, the CBI and the SEBI will probe the scandal involving loot of Rs 3900 crores that has been stolen from the pockets of common Gujaratis, who voted the BJP to power. The party pointed out it is a clear case of money laundering.

Exposing the massive scandal at a press conference here today, the Gujarat Congress president Shaktisinh Gohil, along with the Chairman Media and Publicity, AICC, Pawan Khaira, said that such amount of money could not have been given to Adani’s company without the patronage of the senior BJP leaders.

The party wanted to know at whose behest was this special favour done to Adani. It asked, whether it was the Prime Minister Narendra Modi or the Gujarat Chief Minister with whose patronage such huge financial favours were showered at Adani in Gujarat.

Mr Gohil said the multi-crore scandal was exposed after the GUVNL wrote a letter to the Adani Power seeking refund of Rs 3,900 crores paid extra to the company. He said the letter was apparently written after the Hindenburg Report came in May and the Supreme Court of India set up a special committee to probe it. Besides, he added, some RTI activists also tried to dig into the details.

He observed that to save their skin, the officials as an afterthought wrote to the Adani group seeking refund of the extra money.

Pointing out to the grave lapses committed by the GUVNL, obviously with the patronage from the top, Mr Gohil said, there was a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) between the GUVNL and APM. Under the agreement, the APM was to be paid the energy charges according to the rates of the coal imported from Indonesia. He said, under the agreement it was decided that the charges will be paid according to the ARGUS INDEX/rates or less. But it was found that the charges claimed by the Adani power were significantly high, he added, while quoting the letter written by the GUVNL to APM.

Under PPA the APM was supposed to furnish all documents including the details of the transparent bidding for claiming the charges. But, Mr Gohil revealed, the APM did not furnish any documents and still got the payment. And eventually it was found out that the APM had claimed not just the actual charges, but Rs 3900 over and above the actual energy charges.

“It is a government of the cronies, for the cronies and by the cronies. No government in the past ever facilitated corporate cronyism the way this the most corrupt government has been doing since 2014”, the GPCC president alleged, while adding, “it pains me to say, the Prime Minister Modi and BJP have reduced the Government of Gujarat (GoG) to the Government of Gautam Adani (GoG)”. 

He said, the GUVNL has made payment of Rs 13,802 crore during 2018 to 2023 despite the fact that the Adani Power Mundra did not submit any invoice or report or supporting documents of coal procurement. 

“Releasing of payment without due diligence of invoices and supporting documents in any government cannot be done by any officers”, he observed, while adding, “we believe that the officers must have been asked or directed or even pressurised to process and release the payments to Adani Power irrespective of any document or invoice”.