BRS out of the way, Adani now sets eye on Telangana

Even as his business conglomerate established its presence in most other South Indian States, Telangana had remained a dream for Adani, who in fact had to face rejection of his business offer by the previous BRS government in the State

Hyderabad: Gautam Adani must be a happy man now. Even as his business conglomerate established its presence in most other South Indian States, Telangana had remained a dream for Adani, who in fact had to face rejection of his business offer by the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi government in the State.

So far, Adani’s known presence in Telangana has been the Adani Defence and Aerospace Park in Hyderabad, which became possible primarily since Adani was one of the largest certified partners for DRDO and after being awarded seven prestigious missile programmes, selected Hyderabad as the production centre for these missiles.

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Other than these, Adani’s presence here has been mostly indirect. One was by Adani Green Energy acquiring a 100 percent stake in two special purpose vehicles holding solar projects in Medak of Sterling & Wilson, a Shapoorji Pallonji group company, which have power purchase agreements with the TS Southern Power Distribution Company Ltd.

Another was by an Adani Road Transport-led consortium winning the contract for four-laning of NH-365A from Suryapet to Khammam from the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) under the Centre’s Bharatmala Pariyojana on hybrid annuity mode. Interestingly, a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General in August 2023 had found irregularities in the awarding of this project to the consortium – Suryapet Khammam Road Private Ltd – pointing out that it did not fulfill the requisite condition of having experience in construction work in the highway sector.

Earlier, in 2017, former Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had rejected Adani’s request to enter the power sector as a private player with an eye on the Singareni Collieries. Rao had rejected the business offer said he was not interested in giving thermal-coal based power generation to private people and would rather keep it with TSGENCO.

That, well, is history.

2024 began with Adani Ports and SEZ managing director Karan Adani meeting present Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, barely a week before he completed one month in office. They discussed investments, with the Adani Group evincing interest in setting up a data centre and an aerospace park as well in the State.

The meeting raised many eyebrows since it came immediately after a fiery election campaign and meetings which saw Revanth Reddy echoing his party’s line against Adani and demanding a JPC probe into Adani’s deal after the Hindenburg Research expose. The sudden love for Adani did not end there, with Revanth Reddy meeting Gautam Adani himself at the WEF summit at Davos and signing deals for over Rs.12,000 crore, all this even when Rahul Gandhi continued to be the harshest critic of Adani.

The deals with Revanth Reddy’s government come as a major breakthrough for the Gujarat-based Adani Group, which has been on a deal-signing spree in Southern States of late, and is now entering Telangana via Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu after major deals with these States.

While construction of two data centres in Visakhapatnam, with a total investment of nearly Rs.22,000 crore, is already on, the Adani Group had recently announced it would invest over Rs.42,700 crore in Tamil Nadu through its various group companies after signing MoUs at the Tamil Nadu Global Investors Meet 2024.

Adani’s firms already have an established presence in the cement sector in multiple Southern States, apart from in the port sector, with the firm constructing the Rs.7,700 crore international sea port in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, where it has already taken over operation of the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport.

With Revanth Reddy wholeheartedly welcoming the group into Telangana and promising support, Adani will now be able to expand his foothold in the only southern State where he had negligible presence.