Will continue to invest Rs 5,000 crore and upwards in FY23 & FY24 each, says Anil Sardana of Adani Transmission

Adani Transmission will continue to invest Rs 5,000 crore and upwards in this fiscal year and the next, its managing director and chief executive officer Anil Sardana said. Joining CNBC-TV18 from the MOFSL Investor Conference, he also gave some clarity on Reliance Infrastructure’s claims over the sale of the Mumbai power circle.

Reliance Infrastructure had filed an arbitration claim of Rs 13,400 crore against Adani Transmission for breach of terms in a deal to sell its Mumbai power distribution business. However, Adani had later issued a statement rejecting the claims.

“Reliance Infra is a company from which he (Adani) bought the distribution business and the transaction closed in August of 2018. Subsequently, they came back in December 2021 asking for some claim to which we said that as per the agreement, it is already paid for. They then decided that they will contest it through arbitration and as a part of that process we also laid down our claims and now they have laid their counterclaims,” clarified Sardana.

He added, “We hope that through the due process of law we will have an early resolution but nothing changes as far as customers are concerned and nothing changes as far as the regulatory regime of the Mumbai distribution system is concerned. Therefore, it is only between the shareholders that we will deal with this issue.”

Growth

Sardana said, “We will continue to invest Rs 5,000 crore upwards each year in our ATL portfolio and despite Covid, we have in each of the last two years actually done more than that.”

Referring to the collection efficiency on transmission projects such as the Mumbai distribution circle, Sardana said, “In our Mumbai distribution system as well as the Mundra distribution system, we have more than 100 percent collection. So we have no problem with receivables barring a few states on the transmission side, those which cause delay in payment, but we get along with late payment surcharge.”

He added that he is “very bullish” about the renewables space, and expects to see greater opportunities in renewables from hereon.

Disclaimer: Moneycontrol is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.