Big port and green energy projects change the economics around them: Gautam Adani

Mumbai, Aug 31 (IANS) Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani on Monday said that big infrastructure assets like Mundra and Vizhinjam ports and the Khavda renewable energy project do not just satisfy existing demand but create entirely new capabilities and change the economics around them.

Addressing rating agency CareEdge Group’s annual summit, Gautam Adani said: “India has now entered a very different period. The nature of infrastructure has changed, and the sophistication of our rating frameworks must evolve alongside the sophistication of what India is building.”

“If we build only for the demand we can see today, India will always be late for the opportunities of tomorrow,” the billionaire industrialist remarked.

Gautam Adani said that while Mundra, in Gujarat, is by far India’s largest port today, but three decades ago, a traditional rating assessment would have dismissed it as a marshy coastline with no industrial ecosystem.

“Today, Mundra is easily one of India’s most important commercial gateways. But more importantly, Mundra has created an ecosystem multiple times the size of the port. It is a port connected to rail. Rail connected to logistics centres. Logistics connected to power plants. Power connected to industrial zones. Industrial zones connected to traders and manufacturers all across India,” he pointed out.

Similarly, the Vizhinjam port project in Kerala did not have any takers for 25 years as it was considered too complex and the capital risk was considered “too immense” despite the dire need for such a deep-water port. However, the Adani Group stepped in and built it anyway, he added.

“We sat just 10 nautical miles from the world’s busiest shipping routes, yet we could not handle our own container cargo. We had to tranship through Singapore, Dubai, and Colombo. For decades, Indian commerce paid a direct sovereignty tax to foreign ports simply because domestic infrastructure was deemed too risky for institutional capital,” he highlighted.

Gautam Adani said that Khavda too, through a traditional framework, looks like a harsh desert, with execution risk and demand that is uncertain. These are real challenges — and the caution is justified, he said.

“But what is missed is that Khavda is not a renewable energy project. Khavda is a platform where energy, artificial intelligence, manufacturing, digital infrastructure and industrial capability converge at an unprecedented scale,” he observed.

It can provide the clean electrons required to power India’s future compute infrastructure. It is the foundation for India’s AI manufacturing ecosystem. It can become part of the foundation upon which India’s AI economy is built, he added.

He said that India’s infrastructure ambitions were earlier constrained by limited resources, limited capability, and limited confidence. However, today, India has resources and has demonstrated its capability, but more importantly, discovered a belief in its own potential which ultimately changes the future of a nation, he asserted.

Gautam Adani highlighted that the country’s roads, ports and airports were expanding at unprecedented speed. The renewable energy capacity was growing faster than any other nation on earth and digital infrastructure was reaching hundreds of millions.

–IANS

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