On April 21, 2023, defence ministry officials convened a meeting in Delhi, attended by officials from the Indian Army, the ministry of renewable energy, and the Gujarat government, to discuss the defence restrictions that were coming in the way of the Solar Energy Corporation of India’s project in Gujarat’s Kutch region.
SECI, a public sector firm, had been allotted 23,000 hectares of land by the Gujarat government in Kutch, as part of a renewable energy park that the state claimed would be the largest in the world, covering an area almost as large as Singapore.
But there was a hurdle: the land allotted to SECI was strikingly close to India’s border with Pakistan. As the firm noted in a letter to the Gujarat government, prevailing defence restrictions meant it could only build wind turbines on the land, not solar panels. This made the project economically unfeasible, SECI argued.
At the April meeting, also attended by SECI officials, the defence ministry agreed to relax the restrictions, allowing wind turbines to be built at a distance of 1 km from the border and solar panels at a distance of 2 km.
Despite the SECI’s concerns being addressed, three months later, the firm surrendered the land on the instructions of the renewable energy minister. The Gujarat government then went on to allocate it to the Adani Group, reversing its earlier decision to reserve it for public sector firms.
The Adani Group now holds 445 sq km of land in the park. Earlier, it had the largest allocation after SECI – now, it has more land than all the other developers combined.
Defence experts argue that the relaxation in border rules in the area from which the conglomerate stands to benefit are ill-advised. A former military chief said that it struck him “as particularly imprudent to make any major infrastructure investment so close” to the international border.
Defence analyst Ajai Shukla observed, “By changing border defence regulations and protocols to make fallow border land available for commercial exploitation, the government would appear to be taking on expansive defence responsibilities for the benefit of commercial interests.”
He added, “It would also be laying itself open to charges of favouritism towards any corporate entity that benefits directly from this largesse.”
A former strike corps commander who was responsible for offensive operations in the Rann of Kutch and the nearby international border said the park would come “at the cost of national security”. The commander, who retired as a lieutenant general, said that the relaxation of border rules in the area had “compromised the professional requirements to defend Indian territory to satisfy the corporate greed for profit”.
We have contacted the ministry of defence, the Gujarat government, the ministry of renewable energy and SECI, seeking responses to the findings and the criticisms. This story will be updated if we receive any responses.
We also contacted the Adani Group seeking its responses for the story. We did not receive a response, but in a statement to The Guardian, which first reported the story, a spokesperson said, “We are fully compliant with all the state and central government laws and regulations and have secured all the necessary approvals from the relevant competent authorities.” Further, they noted, “The land allocation for the project adheres to policy guidelines and is based on the credentials and performance of Adani Green Energy, India’s largest renewable energy company.”
Allocation of land
On January 25, 2019, the Gujarat government announced an allocation of 72,400 hectares – approximately 724 sq km – of “government waste land” for a renewable energy park that would house hybrid projects of wind and solar energy in the Rann of Kutch region.
Two years later, in December 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the park, known as the Khavda Solar Park, situated in the Kutch district, which borders Pakistan to the north.
By this time, land parcels in the park had been allocated to two central and two Gujarat public sector units, and two private companies. The Solar Energy Corporation of India was allocated the largest parcel, of 23,000 hectares.
Records from a later meeting chaired by Gujarat’s chief minister on August 23, 2023, reveal that this land was between 1 km and 6 km from the international border, and had been “reserved exclusively for the windmill project of the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a Government of India entity, as per the approval of the ministry of defence”.
That is, though the rest of the park would house hybrid projects, which generated both wind and solar energy, SECI only had approval for a wind park, with a capacity of 3,000 megawatts.
The SECI was allotted this large parcel despite the fact that under the terms of the allocation, none of the developers were to receive more than 20,000 hectares of land.
Adani Green Energy received the second-highest allocation of land, of 19,000 hectares for a plant with a capacity of 9,500 megawatts.
SECI’s concerns
But SECI had concerns about its project. According to notes from the August meeting, a wind energy project on this land would only be able to generate 1,100 megawatts of power, which “was not economically viable for SECI” – thus, the corporation had expressed “reluctance to proceed”.
As the developer, it stood to incur costs that included a security deposit of Rs 2 lakh per megawatt that the project was expected to generate, refundable without interest at the end of the project life, and a lease rent of Rs 15,000 per hectare per year, which would increase by 15% every three years. The firm noted that the lease rent had been calculated keeping in mind three gigawatts of power generation, but the actual power it expected to generate was one-third of this.
As a result, the financial terms “may lead to bids becoming unviable”, the corporation noted in a letter written in April 2021 to the Gujarat government.
The concerns remained unresolved in the next two years – in a letter sent on July 17, 2023, the SECI asked the Gujarat Power Corporation Limited, the project’s nodal agency to allow it “to use the allotted land … for establishment of Hybrid (Solar + Wind) Power Projects”.
The same letter notes that on April 6, 2023, SECI representatives met with local defence authorities and officials of the nodal agency to discuss this matter. The GPCL informed the SECI that it had written to the prime minister’s office, asking it to take up the question with the ministry of defence, and seek clearance to set up photovoltaic modules – solar panels – in the area.
The ministry of defence took a favourable stance on the matter at the April 2023 meeting, held in South Block and chaired by an additional secretary of the department of defence, Dipti Mohil Chawla, an Indian Defence Accounts Service officer who had been promoted to the rank of additional secretary a few months earlier.
Army officers were also present at the meeting – specifically, a major general and brigadier from the directorate general of military operations. So too were representatives of the state government and state power corporations, an official of the ministry of renewable energy and two SECI officials.
According to the minutes of the meeting, a series of decisions were “agreed at with mutual consensus”. Many of these pertained to permissions granted to the Khavda project developers for different activities within specified distances of the border.
A decision was reached at the meeting that wind turbines could be erected from 1 km to 2 km from the border. Further, the ministry of defence agreed that between 2 km and 8 km of the border, the installation of hybrid renewable energy plants, comprising both wind and solar generators, would be allowed.
On May 8, 2023, the defence ministry sent copies of new policy guidelines governing construction along India’s borders to all states and union territories, as well as several central ministries, including the home ministry, the ministry of road transport and highways and the ministry of new and renewable energy.
The letter stated that “a comprehensive review” had been undertaken of security policies to “facilitate infrastructure development along border areas”. Further, it noted, “certain additional relaxations” had been introduced into the policy “to align it with current infrastructure development requirement”.
Among the rules listed in this notification were that, “Construction of Wind, Thermal, Solar and Hybrid Power plants up to a distance of 20 Kms along the India-Pakistan border should be planned in consultation with the Ministry of Defence.”
SECI surrenders land
But despite the relaxation of defence restrictions for the Khavda Solar Park, the SECI did not proceed with the project. Instead, the next month, it found itself in a dramatically different position.
The July 2023 letter notes that at a meeting held on May 1, 2023, chaired by the minister for new and renewable energy, RK Singh, the corporation was directed to “analyze the option of surrendering” the land allotted to it “based on the viability of the project”.
The letter states that though the corporation had requested the government to allow it to set up a hybrid project on the land, “the decision on the same has not been communicated to us to date”.
This was a surprising stance – officials from the SECI and the renewable energy ministry had attended the April 21 meeting where the defence ministry had agreed to relax the border rules for the project on the SECI’s request. The ministry had also received a copy of the broader relaxations that the defence ministry issued on May 8.
But, the letter stated, the SECI “would like to surrender the 23,000-hectare land” allotted to it in the Khavda park. It asked Gujarat Power Corporation to “take back the allotment of land” and “arrange for refund of the charges deposited by SECI”.
Adani moves in
Official documents show that even as the SECI was in the process of giving up its share in the ambitious project, the Adani group was preparing to take advantage of the changes to rules that the SECI had sought.
On July 3, 2023, two weeks before the SECI surrendered its land, the Adani group wrote to Gujarat Power Corporation asking for an allotment of 23,000 hectares in the Khavda park for “wind-solar hybrid” renewable energy projects “in the Area Originally Reserved for Exclusive Wind Energy projects”.
While the earlier allocation had been to Adani Green Energy, this time, Adani Power and its sister concern Mundra Solar Technology, which manufactures solar modules, bid as a consortium.
In support of its request, it cited “revised extant policy/guidelines and norms of Ministry of Defense, Govt. of India and Govt. of Gujarat”.
It is unclear how the Adani Group knew that the rules pertaining to the Khavda park had changed. We emailed the group seeking a clarification on how it had obtained this information – this story will be updated if it responds.
The group’s efforts to secure additional land in the park did not end there.
Four days later, on July 7, Adani Power revised its proposal, stating, “We are given to understand that based on the latest guidelines, additional area has become available and the revised total area works out to 25,500 Hectare approximately.” It sought an allotment of the “entire revised area of 25,500 land” in the park to set up wind-solar hybrid projects.
On August 24, 2023, this matter was taken up in the meeting of a high-powered committee under the chairmanship of the chief minister. Others present included the state minister of energy and finance, the chief secretary, the principal secretary of the state department of energy and petrochemicals and the managing director of Gujarat Power Corporation.
The minutes of this meeting indicate that the attendees discussed the fact that the SECI had been concerned that a wind-only project would be unviable for it, and that subsequently “with the efforts of the Gujarat government, and after extensive discussions of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Home Affairs”, the defence ministry had granted approval for the establishment of hybrid projects in the area between 2 km and 7 km from the border. (This is at slight variance with what is recorded in the minutes of the April 2023 meeting, which state that the defence ministry had approved of hybrid projects between 2 km and 8 km from the border.)
This change effectively increased the renewable energy generation capacity of this land from 1,100 MW to 10,000 MW, the high-powered committee noted.
The records do not show why the SECI did not proceed with this project under the new rules. They state only that the “23,000 Hectares of land reserved for SECI have been demanded” by public sector companies as well as private companies.
The committee then noted that it had earlier decided that the land in question would only be allocated to public sector corporations.
But, after “a detailed discussion”, it concluded that the Indian government’s renewable energy generation targets “are very ambitious” and that “to complete them on time, companies should be selected which have extensive experience in this operation, financial capacity, technical capacity to set up large scale projects, have invested a large amount of capital in Gujarat in this sector, have a manufacturing base in the renewable energy sector”.
Taking these factors into account, the chairman of the committee – the chief minister – decided that Adani Power would be “selected in-principle, as the park developer” for the land.
We emailed the chief secretary of Gujarat to ask if the committee had ordered any kind of tendering or other competitive bidding process before assigning the land to the Adani group. This story will be updated if they respond.
Platforms and other security measures
The April 2023 defence ministry meeting also delved into detail about measures that the developers of hybrid projects between 2 km and 8 km from the border would be required to take to ensure that military preparedness was not hampered.
The minutes note that “from the military operations perspective”, the army officers “wanted concrete solar platforms” that were square in shape, with sides of 1.5 metres. But project developers “were not inclined to meet these measurements as it would not be financially viable”.
Instead, the minutes state, the developers were confident that the platforms they had already constructed “will be adequate in mitigating any threats from enemy tank movements”. They agreed to share “designs and dimensions” of these platforms with the army “to settle their apprehensions in the matter”.
Further, the minutes note, “An area/road tract of 02 km”, whose alignment was to be decided in consultation with the local military authority, was to be kept free of wind turbine generators and solar panels “for movement of mechanised columns”, and a further “01 km on either side of this tract” was to be used only for wind turbine generators, “and no solar panels”.
We emailed the ministry of defence seeking responses to analysts’ criticism that permitting the building of such major infrastructure would risk national security. We will update this story if they respond.
