Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir is among five states named in the US court’s indictment of Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani, his nephew and several others for allegedly offering bribes worth Rs 2,029 crore ($265 million) to government officials for buying power from the state-run Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI).
The indictment filed in the US district court in the Eastern District of New York on October 24 and made public late Wednesday night, spurred massive backlash with the shares of Adani Group plummeting by 20 percent and opposition demanding a probe.
According to the 54-page filing, Jammu and Kashmir Power Corporation Limited apart from other state electricity distribution companies (DISCOMS) entered into a power sale agreement (PSA) with SECI and bribes were allegedly aimed to buy energy at above-market rates for benefiting Adani green and Azure Power.
The US prosecutors found that Adani Green Energy Limited had signed a Power Purchasing Agreement with SECI and the Adani Group was supposed to supply 12 GW of solar power to SECI. In return, the SECI was tasked to find buyers among the state electricity DISCOMS to buy power from the Adani Group.
But SECI was unable to sign PPAs with state electricity companies due to ‘high energy prices’, prompting Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and Vineet S Jain, Ranjit S Sagar and a co-conspirator to devise a scheme of bribing government officials in exchange for entering electricity distribution companies of the above states to sign power purchase agreements with SECI, the US filing said.
The charges allege that the promises of bribes to government officials spanned from July 2021 to February 2022 and the electricity distribution companies of Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh entered into PSAs with SECI under the Manufacturing Linked Project.
Andhra Pradesh's electricity distribution companies, according to it, agreed to purchase approximately seven gigawatts of solar power- the largest amount of PSA with SECI around December 1, 2021.
Further, Adani personally met an unnamed official in Andhra Pradesh to advance the execution of PSA between SECI and state electricity distribution companies between August 7 2021 and September 12 2021 and on or about November 20, 2021, it added.
“The co-conspirators through Adani had offered and promised govt officials approx Rs 2029 crore ($265 million) as bribes to officials to execute the PSAs with SECI,” the US filing said. Of the said amount, it said that Rs 1750 crore was offered to an unnamed Andhra Pradesh foreign official for agreeing to purchase seven gigawatts of solar power from SECI.
Collectively, the PPAs agreed to supply approximately 650 megawatts of solar power to four states including Jammu and Kashmir.
The US prosecutors said Adani’s nephew Sagar used his cellular phone to track specific details of the bribes offered and promised to government officials.
“The co-conspirators undertook extensive efforts to persuade government officials to cause state electricity to sign the PSAs and discussed amongst themselves including through an electronic messaging application,” it said.
It said that the bribe notes identified the state or region for which government officials had been offered a bribe and 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,” it added.
Jammu and Kashmir is an energy deficit region relying mainly on power purchases from outside to maintain peak power demand, especially during winters. This comes despite the hydropower potential of Jammu and Kashmir, causing immense strain on the exchequer with consumers seething with anger over inflated electricity rates.
In the first Legislative Assembly Elections, almost all the parties were unanimous in offering free electricity with a cap to consumers. The ruling National Conference has promised 200 free units of electricity to residents with the chief minister Omar Abdullah rushing to Delhi to seek the additional 300 megawatts of power to meet the demand in winters.
This year alongside the previous year, the Union Territory administration power purchase bill stands at 95,00 crore per annum respectively. Earlier years suggest the spending on power each year increased with the 2021-22 expenditure standing at above Rs 8190 crore and 7,047 crore.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, Principal Secretary, J&K Power Development Department H Rajesh Prasad denied having any power purchasing agreement with any private contractor except for state-owned SECI.
“We have no idea whatsoever. We entered PPAs for certain power which was allocated to us by the Government of India through the SECI a few years ago at a very reasonable rate of Rs 2.5 per unit,” he said.
According to him, the SECI, falling under the Ministry of Renewable Energy, has been allocated to Jammu and Kashmir and other states.
“We found the rates reasonable and cheaper compared to the even higher market rates. Even now the present rates are much higher than the prices we purchase power. We had no idea about Adani or whosoever. We entered into PPAs with SECI and not with any contractor. We have no agreements with anyone else. No one came to approach us,” Prasad added.
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