The Bombay High Court has upheld the Maharashtra government’s decision to award the Dharavi slum redevelopment project in Mumbai to Adani Properties Pvt Ltd (APPL).
A division bench of Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar on Friday dismissed a petition filed by UAE-based Seclink Technologies Corp (Seclink) which had emerged as the highest bidder in the tender for the project that was floated in 2018 but subsequently scrapped.
The court said: “The grounds urged in support of the petition lack force and, accordingly, the challenge to the impugned action on the part of the authorities, whereby the earlier tender process was cancelled and fresh tender process has been resorted to, fails.”
It was on November 11, 2018 that the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government had issued the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) tender. Subsequently, in 2019, the state government signed an MoU with Indian Railways for the inclusion of 45 acres of railway land in the Mahim-Matunga area.
In March that year, the CEO of the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) had written a letter to the Seclink Consortium informing it that they were the preferred bidder. Seclink had put in a bid for ₹7,200 crore.
However, the state government decided to seek fresh bids after the state’s advocate general (AG) said the inclusion of the railway land amounted to a substantial change in tender conditions.
On November 28, 2019, the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government assumed office and, in October 2020, the state cabinet accepted advice of the Committee of Secretaries (COS) and cancelled the 2018 tender.
In November 2020, the state government issued a GR confirming the cancellation of the 2018 tender and announced plans to seek fresh bids for the project. This prompted Seclink to file a writ petition in the High Court challenging the decision.
In October 2022, the Mahayuti government led by Eknath Shinde issued a fresh tender for the project. When the bids were opened in December, APPL was declared as the preferred bidder based on its offer of ₹5,069 crore.
Funds for Bihar
The Adani group is planning to invest about ₹20,000 crore to set up an ultra-super critical thermal power plant in Bihar.
Outlining the group’s investment plans at the `Bihar Business Connect 2024’, Adani Enterprises director Pranav Adani said: “ We intend to invest ₹2,500 crore in Bihar to set up a cement manufacturing capacity of 10 million tonnes per annum in multiple phases; this has the potential to create at least 9,000 direct and indirect jobs.”
The cement plant will come up in Warisaliganj.
Adani did not give any further details on the power plant.
Adani Enterprises has already invested around ₹850 crore in three sectors: logistics, gas distribution and agri-logistics, creating about 25,000 direct and indirect jobs.
“We are now going to invest another ₹2,300 crore in these sectors.”
Adani said the conglomerate was also looking to invest another ₹1,000 crore in strategic infrastructure, like Gati Shakti Railway Terminals and ICDs (Inland Container Depots).
It plans to invest ₹2,100 crore in a smart meteringproject.
