Gautam Adani's next BIG plan, Adani Group to invest Rs 20000 crore to set up thermal power plant in...

Billionaire Gautam Adani's conglomerate plans to invest Rs 20,000 crore in setting up a super critical thermal power plant in Bihar even as it expands its cement, food processing and logistics business in the state. Speaking at the Bihar Business Connect 2024, Pranav Adani, Director, Adani Enterprises Ltd, said the ports-to-energy conglomerate is invested in three sectors in Bihar - logistics, gas distribution and agri logistics, where it has already invested around Rs 850 crore.

"We are now going to invest another Rs 2,300 crore in these sectors. This investment will not only massively increase our warehousing and handling capacity and expand our presence in the EV, city gas distribution (CGD) and compressed biogas (CBG) space but will also generate an additional 27,000 direct and indirect local job opportunities," he said.

The group is also looking to potentially invest another Rs 1,000 crore in developing strategic infrastructure in Bihar, like Gati Shakti Railway Terminals, ICDs (Inland Container Depots) and Industrial Warehousing Parks.

"Another sector we are investing in is smart meter manufacturing. As Bihar migrates from conventional electric meters to smart meters, we will invest Rs 2,100 crore to manufacture and install over 28 lakh smart meters to automate power-consumption-monitoring in five cities--? Siwan, Gopalganj, Vaishali, Saran and Samastipur-- and this will generate at least 4,000 local jobs in this technology segment," he said.

The cement plants in the state will be expanded to 10 million tonnes per annum capacity with an investment of Rs 2,500 crore in multiple phases.

"We are also exploring investment avenues in Bihar's energy sector. Our plan is to invest around Rs 20,000 crore to set up an ultra-supercritical thermal power plant," he said.

"We expect such a massive project to open up at least 12,000 job vacancies in the pre-commissioning phase and also lead to around 1,500 skilled jobs during the operational phase,” he added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI)