May 16, 2012
Adani Group is gearing up to bid for power transmission line development projects. Traditionally, state-run Power Grid Corporation of India has been the developer of inter-state transmission lines and private companies would be contractors to them. But with the government opening up the sector to private developers, companies are keen to participate in these projects as the total investment in the sector in the next five years is pegged at around 2 lakh crore.
“We started the transmission business to support our power generation business. We did not participate in any transmission projects earlier because we were setting up 10,000 crore of transmission line to support 50,000 crore investment on power generation,” Adani’s founder chairman Gautam Adani told to a business daily.
“As and when governments come up with bids for transmission projects, Adani Group would be interested in participating in it,” he said.
In 2007, the government had identified 14 power transmission projects to be awarded for the first time through competitive bidding where the lowest bidder would win the project on a build-own-operate basis, of which around 10 projects have been awarded so far.
Although many entities such as Larsen & Toubro, GMR group, RPG Enterprises, Essar Group participated in the bids, these projects have been concentrated mostly between the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Infrastructure and Anil Agarwal-led Sterlite Grid, which bagged four projects worth 7,000 crore and three projects worth 4,500 crore, respectively.
The Gujarat-based Adani Group forayed into power transmission by setting up a double circuit transmission system connecting its Mundra power plant to Dehgam. Recently it commissioned another transmission line connecting the Mundra unit to Mohindergarh in Haryana. It is also setting up two transmission projects for evacuation of power from its power plant at Tiroda in Maharashtra.
Adani group is also seeking a commercial licence for its Mundra-Mohindergarh project since it would be transporting only 1,500 MW of electricity through the system from the Mundra power plant, while the system has a capacity to transport up to 2,500 MW.