1. What are the demands of this protest?
- Rollback the increase in Electricity Tariff and instead recover the losses of the Electricity board from corporates like Adani that are responsible for the loss through their Corruption
- The Central Government must immediately stop the practise of favouring Adani to make him the monopoly of ports, airports, cement business, coal import business etc
- The Tamil Nadu state government must immediately file FIR against Adani and others on the Rs 3000 Crores Coal Import Scam in the TANGEDCO
- The Central Government must file FIR and investigate the coal import scam of Adani throughout India across various Electricity boards
- The Central and State Governments must Initiate investigation against Adani and others on the bribery charges raised by the US government in which Adani is being alleged to have conspired and tried bribing various Government officials of State Electricity boards to procure the Solar energy supplied by him through SECI at a higher rate.
- The Central Government should stop the practise of misusing CBI, ED, IT, CCI and others Central Government Agencies as henchmen to handover other companies to Adani.
2. In the past, we protested against corruption by politicians, even IAS officers and govt officials, but now, why are we protesting against a private company and its owner?
We are not protesting against a private company. We are protesting to seek action from the Central and State Government for them to take action against the illegalities and Corruption done by the private company creating huge loss to the tax payers money and increasing our Electricity Tariff. Adani’s Corruption is creating massive irreparable losses to the Electricity boards of the country.
That being said, there is also a growing need to talk about the growing monopoly of the companies and their collusion with government and bureaucracy. We got our freedom from the British. But a little dive into history will remind us a fact that it was not the British government which captured us first. It was the “East India Company” a business unit which captured and enslaved us slowly with its monopoly in all the business of our country. Currently almost after 300 odd years we are in a similar condition where in companies of an individual named Adani is capturing all the business of our country with complete monopoly and if left unchecked will enslave us economically and will kill our democracy forever.
Already Adani has control of 13 ports and 8 airports. In addition to it, Adani has achieved monopoly in coal supply to majority of state’s Electricity boards and also in Solar energy supply. All this has happened with the active favouritism policy of the central and state Governments that needs to be questioned by us.
3. Companies growing bigger and, in this process, acquiring other companies and moving toward monopoly is a common business practise. How Adani’s monopoly is different from this and why it should be opposed and questioned ?
Monopoly in any business even if it happens through normal process is bad for the consumers and public. In fact, it is duty of the government to ensure there is no monopoly in any business and healthy competition thrives. Monopoly in essential infrastructure is detrimental to the entire nation especially when such a monopoly is achieved misusing the same government agencies whose responsibility is to ensure healthy competition and avoid monopoly.
4. How is government helping Adani to achieve monopoly?
The below cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence. There is a clear pattern that emerge to show how investigating agencies are misused to sell India and its companies to Adani!
Case 1 : Mumbai airport
GVK Airport Developers Ltd(GVKADL) ,which is part of GVK group was holding the development and maintenance of Mumbai airport in a joint venture Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) from 2006.
In July 2020, the CBI books cases on GVK group owner for allegedly causing a loss of 705 Crores to ex-chequer in the development and maintenance of Mumbai airport
In Aug 2021, Adani “acquires” GVKADL and the development and maintenance of Mumbai airport.
In Jan 2023, the CBI drops corruption charges.
Case 2 : Krishnapatnam Port, Andhra Pradesh
This Krishnapatnam Port Co. Ltd (KPCL) port, the second largest private port in India was built by the Navayuga Engineering Company Limited, the flagship concern of the CVR Group, under a build-operate-share-transfer (BOST) agreement with the Government of Andhra Pradesh and was in operation from 2008.
Oct 2018 – The IT raids the offices of Navayuga Engineering Company Limited
Dec 2020 – Adani acquires 75% stake in KPCL port from Navayuga Engineering Company Limited, CVR group at 13% lower cost than the original deal value
Apr 2021 – Adani acquires the balance 25% stake of KPCL.
Case 3: NDTV
Jun 2017: The CBI raids NDTV and it founders in connection with loans from ICICI Bank
Dec 2022 : Adani acquires NDTV
Dec 2024 : The CBI gives clean chit to NDTV founder saying no evidence found.
There are many such cases that has unfolded right before our eyes. The Central Government and the PM Modi must be questioned heavily on this monopoly and favouritism policy for Adani.
5. What is the Rs 3000 crore coal import scam in which Adani colluded with TANGEDCO?
TANGEDCO imported 2.44 Crore metric tons of coal between 2012 to 2016 for use in its thermal power plants. Tender conditions were made restrictive to favour Adani and few others and Adani alone supplied 50% of the coal, close to 1.19 Crore Metric tons.
As per the tender conditions, Adani has to supply 6000 kcal/ kg quality to TANGEDCO which will be used by various thermal plants under TANGEDCO. As per the CAG report and evidences gathered by us, Adani fraudulently supplied sub-standard coal of 3500kcal/kg instead of 6000kcal/kg, that too at a highly inflated price than the market rate, causing a loss of around Rs.3000 Crore to TANGEDCO. The State Government instead of recovering this huge loss from Adani and blacklisting them in TANGEDCO, passed on the loss to the consumers in TN through hiking of Electricity Tariff. Why should common citizen pay for the Corruption of Adani? The State Government and the CM Stalin that came to power promising FIR on this scam must be questioned for this blatant surrender to Adani!
6. What are the evidences available proving the coal scam in TANGEDCO ?
There are several crucial evidences in the scam
- Evidences obtained through RTI on big price differences (of USD 20 per metric tonne) between TANGEDCO and TNPL for the same quality of coal
- CAG report showing low grade coal fraudulently reported as high grade coal
- Proof of shipment showing that the coal loaded and sent from Indonesia is of 3500 Kcal/ Kg whereas proof of how the same shipment is claimed as 6000 Kcal/ kg by Adani to TANGEDCO.
- Comparison with Indonesian market prices of coal showing over-invoicing.
For Example: Adani buys coal from a Company called PT Johnlin Group in Indonesia. Even by the website details of PT Johnlin , the highest quality of coal supplied by this company is 5200 KCal.
1) For the consignment in a ship “MV Kalliopi”, a certificate of origin was issued for 69925 MT of Coal from PT Johnlin Indonesia to TANGEDCO Chennai India.
2) For the same ship consignment ,”PT Johnlin” raises an invoice for $28/MT to “Supreme Union Investors Ltd” a middleman company in British Virgin islands, a tax haven.
3) For the same ship consignment , “Supreme Union Investors Ltd” raises an invoice of $33.74/MT to “Adani Global” and mentions the quality of coal as 3500Kcal/kg.
4) For the same ship consignment , Adani raises an invoice of $91.91/MT to TANGEDCO and mentions the quality of coal as 6000Kcal/kg.
For a single shipment Adani has inflated the prices by 91-28 = 63$ which is a direct loss to TANGEDCO and in turn to the exchequer.
For the 1.2 Crore metric ton of coal, the total loss amounts to much more than Rs 3000 Crores. Apart from this direct loss of money, it is important to note that this price is inflated for the coal of standard 3500Kcal/ Kg instead of the expected 6000Kcal/Kg by TANGEDCO.
7. How does low quality coal affect our Electricity Tariff?
1 Kg of 6000 Kcal coal can generate 2.1 units of electricity while 1 kg of 3500 Kcal coal can only generate 1.2 units of electricity. Therefore, when Adani alone supplies1190 crore Kg of coal to TANGEDCO, the loss in units due to low grade coal is (2.1-.12)*1190 crores of units = 1071 Crore units of Electricity. Government has to now spend extra Rs.3000 to 4000 Crores to generate this amount of Electricity (assuming a rate of Rs.3 to Rs.4 per unit). Such corruption is the reason for losses in TANGEDCO. This loss is directly placed on the consumers through Tariff increase.
8. Was there a Coal shortage in TANGEDCO in addition to the money loss due to the scam?
Yes definitely. There was news around Aug 2021, where the TNEB minister Mr. Senthil Balaji at that time declared that 2.38 Lakh tonnes of Coal worth Rs.85 Crores was missing from TANGEDCO’s North Chennai power plant and hinting about similar issues in the Mettur and Tuticorin thermal stations. The Coal was not missing, but it is just basic science that when you have procured 3500Kcal/kg Coal in place of 6000 Kcal/kg coal, you will be forced to burn more coal to generate same power and you will run out of coal earlier than planned. It is learnt that this apparent over burning was not entered into stocks showing as though the coal is still available in stocks. Even though the State Government and its Minister said that strict action will be taken on the coal disappearing, it is now found that the report about the coal disappearing has itself disappeared!
9. Was there no quality check from TANGEDCO side to ensure the grade of coal procured?
The Quality check was designed exactly to facilitate the corruption. In the tender conditions itself TANGEDCO had come up with a weird quality checking process in which a Third party appointed by Adani himself will test and provide a quality report and also will provide the sample for testing to TANGEDCO. By this weird quality checking condition, they have ensured that low grade coal can be imported in place of high grade coal fraudulently on one side and on other side Adani can ensure providing high grade coal for sample testing alone. The Quality check has happened both at the place of export (Indonesia) and import(India) and both the quality checks were done by the same company GeoChem appointed and paid by Adani. Geochem is already well known for fake quality certificates.
10. Was there any FIR earlier on anyone involving such supply of low grade coal ?
Yes. Similar corruption and scam worth Rs.500 Crore was allegedly done by Coastal Energy Private Limited, which supplied inferior quality of coal imported from Indonesia to NTPC and Arvali Power Corporation causing a loss of Rs.500 Crore. CBI in 2018 had filed an FIR in this case against Ahmed A R Buhari, the promoter of Coastal Energy Private Ltd and Ahmed A R Buhari was jailed in this case.
But Adani doing the same scam and corruption mounting to Rs.3000 Crore in TN alone and to Several Thousand crores of rupees across various State Electricity Boards is roaming free. It’s an irony that now Adani has taken over this Coastal Energy Private Limited, another classic example how Union government agencies help Adani acquire competing companies.
11. Was recent indictment in the US Court against Adani related to the Coal scam above?
No, it is a completely new scam involving Electricity Board of various states of India.
12. Can you explain more on this new scam and the related indictment by the US government on Adani?
It was a detailed 54 page indictment filed in the United States district court, Eastern district of New York with details and proof submitted by various USA government agencies like FBI,SEC.
In short, as per the indictment document by the US, Gautam S Adani, Sagar Adani, nephew of Gautam Adani and Vineet S Jain of Adani Green Energy colluded and conspired with few other corporate officials from Azure Power and Canadian investor company CDPQ to bribe various Indian government officials to persuade them to buy power from Solar Energy Corporation of India( SECI), a Government of India enterprise to whom Adani supplies their Solar power.
13. Why should Adani bribe state government officials to buy power from SECI, a Union government enterprise?
Around June 2020, Adani Green Energy won the tender by SECI to supply 8GW of Solar Power to SECI at the rate of Rs.2.92 per kWh for next 25 years. Azure Power, the second winner of this tender was to supply 4 GW of Solar power to SECI at the same rate of Rs 2.92 per kWh for next 25 years. SECI in turn would sell this solar power procured from Adani and Azure power to Electricity Board of various state governments. This tender was called as “Manufacturing Linked Project“. Adani and Azure power announced this as winning the world’s largest manufacturing-linked solar tender.
Both Adani Green energy and Azure power were planning to raise investment worth several billion dollars in USA based on this project win and the profit projection out of this project for the next 25 years. But SECI could not find any buyers from any of the State government’s electricity board due to higher tariff. With no buyer for SECI, SECI could not buy from Adani Green Energy and Azure power and the project stalled.
In order to make this project work with higher profit margin for the next 25 years as already calculated and to raise investment in US for the same, Electricity Boards of state government had to make agreement with SECI to buy solar power from SECI.
For the Electricity Boards of the state governments to buy Solar power from SECI at a higher tariff, Adani and other Corporate officials promised bribes to the officials of the Electricity boards. The Electricity boards mentioned in the indictment include the states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jammu and Kashmir.
14. Who are all the Indian Government officials that were offered bribe and how much?
As per the indictment document by US, Adani promised bribe to officials of the Electricity boards of Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu on various occasions between July 2021 and February 2022.
The total amount of bribe promised is approximately Rs.2029 Crores, out of which around Rs.1750 Crores were offered to an official in Andhra Pradesh alone. By this magnitude of bribe we can assume how much profit and investment projection would have been involved in this project.
15. What is our demand in this scam?
The US has filed an indictment because their investors are affected when bribe is paid. On the other side, we very well know that the people who will be most affected by such offer of bribe are Indian consumers as eventually such bribery amounts will be passed on to consumers who will be forced to pay more tariff. Therefore, both the Central and the State Government should file an FIR and investigate the scam and the bribery schemes.
16. Are there any other proofs submitted by the US government agencies regarding the bribe scheme?
The US government agencies have recovered documents from the cell phone of Sagar R Adani named “Bribe Notes”. This Bribe Notes identified
- i) the state and the region in which the government officials had been offered a bribe
- ii) the total amount of the offered bribe
iii) the approximate amount of solar power the state or region would agree to purchase in exchange for the bribe.
In most instances the bribe notes also identified the per megawatt rate for the total bribe amount offered, the abbreviated titles of the government officials who would receive the bribes, and/or the allocation of the total bribe amount among government officials within each state and region.
Apart from these, Vineet S Jain had a photograph of a document in his cell phone summarising the share of bribe amount Azure power owed to Adani. As per the documents, Azure power share in the bribe amount was Rs.638 Crores (of the total 2029 Crores].
There were various PowerPoint and excel documents which showed how they were analysing various options through which Azure power can pay its bribe share of Rs.638 crores to Adani. It is to be noted that Azure power returned its share of 2.3 GW of power supply agreement back to SECI and SECI awarded this 2.3GW power supply agreement to Adani as a mode of pending bribe payment of Azure to Adani. Thus Azure Power paid back its part of share of bribe by giving part of the project won by them to Adani.
17. What is the expected action from the Indian Union government and TN state government ?
The Union Government should cancel the current Power Purchase Agreement(PPA) that the SECI has with Adani immediately and the CBI should file an FIR on Adani and various government officials involved and investigate the scam in detail.
There has been accusation in indictment that the Government officials from Tamil Nadu have also been offered bribe and that the TANGEDCO has agreed to buy power from SECI. So legally DVAC under TN Government can file an FIR against Adani and unknown TN Government officials involved and start investigation on the bribery charges.
18. Is the recent visit by Adani to TN and speculation around it related to this bribery scheme?
It may not be so since the meeting to offer bribe and the related deal happened between July 2021 and Feb 2022. But we have reasons to believe it may be related to the coal scam. Arappor Iyakkam has been demanding FIR on Adani on the Coal scam in TANGEDCO from 2018 after its official complaint to DVAC. Since there was no action till 2024, even 3 years after DMK government took charge, around last week of June 2024, Arappor Iyakkam requested permission to protest in the Assembly requesting FIR on Coal scam done by Adani between 2012 and 2016.
Soon after this on 02 July 2024, news about TN Government’s approval to DVAC to start preliminary investigation came out. Following this, Adani visited Chennai on 09th July 2024 . With the Government hiding the data on details of which Government officials Adani had visited during this time, we have a strong suspicion that Adani might have visited Chennai to try to stop the TN government from filing an FIR against him in the Rs 3000 Crore Coal import scam.
19. Both the Union government and TN State government are not ready to take action on Adani. What can the public do ?
Scams like these will end up in increased Tariffs for the common man . So it is important for the public to voice against these kind of collusion and conspiracy between the businessmen and the politicians and demand proper legal action. This is the precise reason why we are organising a protest against this collusion on 05-Jan-2025 at 9.30 Am at Valluvar Kottam. When more people raise their voice, the Government of the day will be forced to disassociate from any underhand dealings with Adani and increase the chance of taking legal action against Adani’s scams.
20. Will anything change if the public protest?
We, the people, need to use all the democratic means available to us to make the Corrupt accountable. Protesting on one day and leaving the issue as such won’t help. But we have collected evidence of Corruption against Adani, complained about the scam with evidence and have applied continuous pressure to come to a position of starting an enquiry against him in Tamil Nadu. We have also continuously created awareness amongst the masses about the scams.
All these will add pressure on the Government. Even a Government which wants to broker a deal with Adani will have to think twice if there is people’s wish and pressure against it. Only a few committed people have always ended up changing the status quo and it is therefore our duty to use all democratic means and ways to change the status quo. One such powerful way of expressing people’s wish and want is through people’s gathering. Right to assembly and right to free speech are fundamental rights given to us, the citizens.
Let us use it responsibly in demanding FIR and investigation on Adani; let us demand stopping of Adani’s monopoly; let us demand our EB Tariff to be decreased; let us demand that the recovery be made from the Corrupt such as Adani.
Come on January 5 to Valluvar Kottam at 9.30 Am. Together we can make a difference!
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