The Adani Group was established in 1988 and became publicly traded in 1994. But its real rise happened under Modi’s reign in Gujarat. From 2002 to last March the group’s revenue rose from $765 million to $ 8.8 billion while net profits climbed even faster. During this period it constructed its SEZ, bought mines in Indonesia and Australia to ensure it had a steady supply of coal for its thermal power plants in India and launched Asia’s largest coal import terminal in Mundra. In 2011 it further expanded in Australia, buying for $2 billion Abbot Point, a coal terminal in Queensland. It also tacked on a hefty amount of debt–$ 13 billion–more than doubling since 2011. While none of the other companies in Kutch, or the rest of Gujarat for that matter, have received the kind of largesse on land rates as Adani, they, too, have benefitted from the Modi government’s bent. It is one that, whatever Modi may now be saying on the campaign trail against crony capitalism and on behalf of the downtrodden, is even less mindful of environmental damage and villager prerogatives than are Indian land- use practices in general. At a political rally in distant Lucknow in early March, Modi said farmers were his friends and he would stand by them. He also said he would “not allow anyone to loot the exchequer.” But spend time around the villages of Kutch and a vastly different picture appears. This region was famous for its crops of sapodilla, a brown, fleshy fruit slightly smaller than a tennis ball, as well as dates, coconuts and castor. Area farmers say that that’s no longer the case. (Official stats seem to end in 2006.) Fly ash and saline water from Adani Power and a nearby Tata Power Co. Ltd. plant are spoiling the crops and making the soil less fertile, they say. For miles at a stretch the chimneys of the two power plants are visible against the horizon. Gajendra Sinh Jadeja, the 28-year-old head of Navinal village, says the Gujarat government took some 930,770 square meters of his village’s grazing land for Adani’s SEZ. Adani got it for 19 cents a square meter.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 03:38:42 +0000
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