The Modi government has stonewalled questions arising from a recent raft of accusations that the Adani group has been over-invoicing coal imports.

Union power minister R.K. Singh put out a long-winded written reply that deftly side-stepped a set of loaded questions raised by Trinamul MP Jawahar Sircar in the Rajya Sabha which stemmed from a damning report by the Financial Times on October 12.

The FT report had claimed that the Adani group had imported billions of dollars of coal at prices that were well above market prices, igniting suspicions that the country’s largest private importer of coal had been inflating fuel costs and forcing consumers and businesses to overpay for electricity.

The London-based newspaper had poured over customs records since July 2021 and found that the Adani group paid a “total of $4.8 billion to … three companies for coal sourced at substantial premiums to market prices.”

The three offshore intermediaries had received a “black premium” that was “at times more than double the market price,” the report said. They were identified as Hi-Lingos which operates out of Taiwan, a Dubai-based company called Taurus and a small Singapore firm named Pan Asia Tradelink.

In his reply, Singh did not refer to the accusations against the Adani group at all. Instead, the minister put out statistics to show why power plants had been advised to import coal in December 2021 when coal stocks started to deplete as demand for electricity rose dramatically, raising the risk of power cuts and blackouts across the country.

Initially, the power plants were asked to import 10 per cent of their coal requirements. The high-cost imported coal was then blended with fuel stock obtained from domestic sources.

In October this year, the power ministry had advised the state-owned, central and independent power producers (IPPs) “to import coal for blending at 6 per cent (by weight) minimum…till March 2024,” Singh added.

The Centre washed its hands off the accusations of over-invoiced coal imports.

“The issue of the fuel costs and the resultant tariff is between the Genco and the Regulator – the government has no role to play,” Singh said.

“If a Discom (power distribution company) or Genco is aggrieved by the order of a Regulator, they can appeal to the APTEL – the Appellate Tribunal,” the minister said in his reply.

Sircar said the minister “has tried his best to drown us with unnecessary data – to deflect the question”.

The minister said “the price of the imported coal is not comparable with the price of domestic coal due to difference in calorific value

"The pricing of imported coal is linked with international indices for import coal, source of origin, other factors like ocean freight, insurance etc which is purely dynamic and vary with international demand-supply scenario."

The Adani Group had recently issued a statement accusing the Financial Times (FT) of running a “malicious campaign”, alleging that the media outlet has been recycling old and unsubstantiated allegations.

Adani Green

Adani Green Energy (AGEL) on Tuesday said it has obtained funding of $1.36 billion from a consortium of international banks.

The senior debt facility will increase the company's funding pool to $3 billion since the fund-raising started in 2021.

The latest funding will be utilised for the development of the world’s largest renewable energy park at Khavda in Gujarat, Adani said.

In the initial stage of the project, the company has made strides on a 2,167MW project at Khavda .

The agreements have been executed with eight leading international banks: BNP Paribas, Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A., DBS Bank Ltd, Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A., MUFG Bank, Ltd., Societe Generale, Standard Chartered Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

The news led to AGEL shares being locked at the 20 per cent upper circuit on the BSE on Tuesday. It settled at Rs 1,348, a gain of Rs 224.65. The company had a market cap of Rs 2.13 lakh crore.