Adani’s Profit in Power Costlier for Consumers

The Financial Times, in a detailed investigation The Mystery of the Adani Coal Imports that Quietly Doubled in Value, found that industrialist Gautam Adani, who is India’s ‘largest private coal importer, has been inflating fuel costs,' leading to 'millions of Indian consumers and businesses overpaying for electricity.' The investigation points to Adani’s use of 'offshore intermediaries' from Taiwan, Dubai, and Singapore to import $5 billion worth of coal at prices that were at times more than double the market price. The allegation of inflating fuel costs was first made seven years ago in a probe by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, the Indian finance ministry’s investigative unit that polices economic crime. But like with the Hindenburg revelations which the Security and Exchanges Board of India did not probe in 2014, even this misdemeanor has not been probed. Referring to his sharply rising fortunes in the past ten years, as his ten listed companies have thrived and he has emerged as 'India’s biggest private thermal power company and biggest private port operator,' the investigation called Adani Modi’s Rockefeller. Like the rest of India, Panjab too suffered because most of its electricity is from thermal plants and the state paid a higher price for raw coal, but its financial woes have been blamed on electricity subsidies to small and marginal farmers and laborers.