NEW DELHI: In 2014 Gautam Adani reportedly planned to sell electricity to Pakistan. Now, revelations by The Guardian this week that the power project close to the border in the Rann of Kutch was secretly handed over to the company by the Modi government after tweaking defence rules, has drawn flak from the opposition.
The Congress on Wednesday asked the Narendra Modi-led government to come clean on the claims made in a news report that it had changed the rules regarding land allocation near international borders to help the Adani group build a renewable energy park in Gujarat’s Rann of Kutch at the India-Pakistan border.
Reacting to an investigation by The Guardian, Congress leaders said that the government move jeopardised national security, and asked the prime minister and the defence minister to “explain why such a drastic step to compromise our national security was taken”.
Neither the government nor the Adani group had responded to the news reports and the comments made by the Opposition party, the Indian Express said.
Congress asks Modi govt to come clean on claims made in The Guardian report
The investigation by The Guardian, but not a revelation since the project was mentioned way back as 2014, said that the Adani Group is setting up a solar plant and building the world’s largest renewable energy park at Khavda in Kutch, barely a kilometre from the Pakistan border.
Earlier security protocols did not allow any construction in the area, but the Gujarat government wrote to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) before April 2023, seeking permission for infrastructure projects to be built on the land near the border, reported the British publication.
Its report claimed that a “confidential meeting” was convened in Delhi on April 21, 2023, to discuss the matter. At that time, the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) was in possession of the land that was leased out by the Gujarat government.
The Guardian further reported that by May 8, 2023, the Centre had changed the protocols to allow infrastructure projects. By August, the Adani group was in charge of the land in the Rann of Kutch, the paper added.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the pseudo-nationalistic face of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has once again been unmasked.
“Narendra Modiji, you have endangered national security at our borders in order to benefit private billionaires. Is it true that you have gifted precious strategic land, just 1 km near the International Border with Pakistan, to your ‘dear friend’ by relaxing border security rules?” Mr Kharge asked in a post on X.
In a post on X in Hindi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asked, “Has the process of handing over all the resources of the country to the Prime Minister’s ‘friend’ reached such a point that even the border security rules are being changed?”
In May 2014, coinciding with PM Modi’s ascent to power, the Indian Express reported that Adani Power was planning to set up a 10,000MW thermal power plant in the Kutch region of Gujarat and the bulk of the electricity to be produced from it was likely to be exported to Pakistan.
The Express quoted unnamed sources as saying at the time that Adani Power discussed the proposal of the Kutch project with the UPA-II Manmohan Singh government, but there was not much progress. The company then hoped to implement the proposal during the incoming NDA regime as a coal-based project in phases beginning with 3,300MW and ramp it up to 10,000MW within the next five years, he said.
Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2025
