Modani Diaries: What’s Fishy Is Cooking Between Modi And Adani Group?
The Chinese holdings in an Indian company strongly linked with the Adani Group, which operates from premises owned by the Adani Group Ltd calls into question the Adani Group's repeated claims that the business is assisting PM Modi's nation-building efforts and efforts to make India self-sufficient.
According to sources, a Chinese corporation associated with the Adani Group is working to construct vital infrastructure in India.
In addition to other public utilities, the company, PMC Projects (India) Private Limited, has been building airstrips, seaports, container terminals, rail lines and electrical transmission lines. Although it is based in facilities owned by Adani Enterprises, the company’s flagship, Chang Chien-Ting (also known as Morris Chang), the son of Chang Chung-Ling, who has served as a director of numerous Adani companies over the years and is rumoured to be Vinod Adani’s “elusive” business partner, owns it.
Is it ok to charge any company for such a big project which is under scrutiny by many regulatory bodies the presence of a Chinese-owned corporation in the building of essential infrastructure in India raises concerns regarding national security, it says, adding that the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has filed charges against Adani Group entities.
The firms in question have been accused of ‘over-invoicing,’ which is a practice in which items are routed via an intermediary who falsely inflates the price in order to generate an unfair advantage for the primary company in question. According to a show-cause notice sent to various Adani Group companies and Vinod Adani, the alleged over-invoicing of imported equipment was carried out by three companies: Adani Power Maharashtra Limited (APML), Adani Power Rajasthan Limited (APRL), and Maharashtra Eastern Grid Power Transmission Company Limited (MEGPTCL).
According to the DRI, while importing machinery for setting up electricity transmission lines, an entity called Electrogen Infra FZE (EIF), registered in the United Arab Emirates and controlled by Vinod Adani, acted as a middleman invoicing intermediary for PMC Projects (India) Private Limited (PMC) and MEGPTCL. EIF has overstated invoice amounts to PMC and MEGPTCL by up to 400 per cent
About PMC and their relations with Adani group.
On May 3, 2005, the company was established in Ahmedabad as a wholly owned subsidiary of Project Monitoring and Construction Limited (PM&CL), a private corporation registered in Mauritius. PM&CL had 9999 shares in PMC, whereas Malay Mahadevia owned one. Mahadevia, the initial director of PMC, is a dentist by profession and a close friend and professional acquaintance of Gautam Adani. He has worked with the Adani Group since the early 1990s.
Though the Adani Group never referred to PMC as a ‘group business,’ the firm’s relationship with the Adani Group was obvious from the start, with the registered email address of PMC using an Adani Group domain name in the company’s annual filings between 2006 and 2012.
PMC Projects (India) Private Limited’s official website is no longer accessible; however, its archives state that PMC Projects has worked closely with developers and has developed India’s largest private port as a project management consultant from concept to construction and management at Mundra, Gujarat. In India, the business has also done considerable work in running ports at Dahej and Hazira.
PMC Projects is also in the midst of creating berths at key ports in Gujarat, Goa, and Andhra Pradesh, including Kandla and Mormugao. PMC Projects also provides Project Management Consulting services for international projects such as the Abbot Point coal terminal expansion, the Carmichael Coal Mine Project, and the North Galilee Basin Rail Project (NGBR Project).
If everything was ok, then why the firm PMC Projects haven’t revealed the name of their owner earlier?
According to the article, the Government of India modified a part of the Firms Act 2013 on February 8, 2019, making it essential for firms to reveal the identities of the entity’s significant beneficial owners. This required PMC Infra Ltd to reveal the identity of its beneficial owner. Chang Chien-Ting (also known as Morris Chang) announced on September 28, 2020, that he was the sole beneficial owner of PMC Projects (India) Ltd through the Mauritius-registered PMC Infra Ltd. Chien-Ting is the son of Chang Chung-Ling, a former Adani Group director whose name has surfaced in connection with the coal-procurement probe, with the disclosure form identifying Chien-Ting as a Chinese citizen.
Conclusion.
China has already made a name for itself by engaging in questionable actions in India, whether directly at the Arunachal border or indirectly through Pakistan’s assistance. There is no question that Chinese officials do not act in good faith; they always have a reason, which is most likely in China’s interest.
Furthermore, the Adani Group has been under scrutiny since the beginning of the year. Many people are claiming that there is something shady going on in the Adani group as well.
In such a case, if this accusation is accurate, is it acceptable for the central government to entrust such questionable corporations with the construction of large infrastructure on Indian lands?
