Our in-house incubator that nurtures assets fundamental to nation building

FY 2017-18 will go down in the economic history of India as a decisive year towards unlocking the potential of the country’s future. The government, under the able leadership of the honourable Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi, completely transformed its tax regime from an indirect tax system to a comprehensive GST with an aim to integrate the whole country into a single market. This revolutionary reform, coupled with last year’s demonetisation exercise as well as continued focus on technology-driven transformation, has paved a strong and sustainable growth path towards building a new India.

The positive outcomes of these foundational changes could be observed this year itself. India jumped 30 points to join the top 100 countries in the World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ index. Moody’s, the global credit rating agency, upgraded India’s sovereign credit rating to Baa2 for the first time since 2004. India’s stock markets stood among the world’s best performing markets as they grew by more than 30% year on year.

Clearly, having emerged as the fastest growing major economy in the world, our nation now stands on the cusp of explosive growth and it is up to businesses like us and stakeholders like you to transform this potential into performance. At Adani Enterprises, the ambitions of our companies have long remained intertwined with the expectations of the country.

In fact, the idea of Adani was born with the core objective of catering to assets fundamental to nation building. We are present in diverse nation critical business spaces with leadership status across the verticals. Coal is one of such building blocks that fuel the power needs of the nation. One of the core goals of the Government of India is to ensure that it is able to meet the country’s power generation needs. Despite significant development in energy efficiency improvements and thrust on renewables, increasing energy demands will necessitate greater dependence on coal use. We aim to reach 200 million MT through our mining and trading operations by 2020, making Adani one of the largest groups in this segment in the world.

As India’s first private mining company to pioneer the concept of Mine Developer and Operator (MDO), the company stands at a peak production capacity of 52 MTPA with the addition of two more coal blocks – Talabira II and III, GPIII coal blocks in its portfolio. These projects have the potential to provide direct and indirect employment to more than 5000 people. We are well aware of the challenges reckless mining practices pose to the delicate balance of the ecosystem. As a “Responsible Green Miner”, we continue to expand the ambit of our conservation approach to mitigate negative impact on the environment. Across all stages of our existing and planned projects, environmental risks are identified, assessed and addressed on a regular basis. We have adopted a policy of planting 29 trees for every tree being felled. But the focus remains on tree transplantation through state-of-the-art technology. In the last few years, 7000+ trees with girth size of less than 60 cm have been relocated recording a survival rate of more than 85%.

Our contribution to conservation is also manifested through our green business portfolio. Adani’s renewable energy business harnesses the power of sun and the strength of wind to light up millions of households across the nation. In FY2017- 18, 1120 MW solar PV plants were commissioned in various locations across India, under the National Solar Mission Scheme taking the tally of operationalised renewable projects to 1928 MW with a further pipeline of 1217 MW of projects under various stages of implementation across the country.

This year, leveraging our domain expertise in renewables and strengthening our natural synergies across the energy value chain, Adani Solar set up the world’s largest Greenfield single location Solar PV manufacturing plant with a capacity of 1.2 GW. This state-of-the-art plant at Mundra is poised to play a pivotal role in making solar energy affordable and accessible to all.

This progress is naturally aligned with the India-led International Solar Alliance mooted by our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in 2015 with an aim to raise $1 trillion of private and public finance to provide affordable and sustainable energy for all by 2030.

Given the severity of air quality problems in key developing nations the mining business unit of the Adani Group was established in 2007 as the last link in ensuring energy security for India. Annual Report 2017-18 22 countries including China and India, growing climate change challenges, and overall favourable economics, the demand for natural gas in India has increased significantly. Natural gas is a precious resource with the potential to address some of India’s most pressing energy and environmental challenges. Adani Gas is developing City Gas Distribution (CGD) networks to supply Piped Natural Gas (PNG) to the Industrial, Commercial, Domestic (residential) sectors and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) to the transport sector. We are working towards becoming the largest Natural Gas distribution company in the country. With a firm hold over 4 cities - Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Faridabad, Khurja and bids for 3 other locations in place, the plan is to enter 50 cities by 2020.

Modernising the agriculture sector is another area which can unlock the potential of ushering in food security in the country. Through our three main agro verticals - Adani Wilmar Limited, Adani Agri Logistics Limited and Adani Agri Fresh Limited, we wish to elevate our farmer’s status to a new level that yields them self-respect and self-reliance in equal measures. One of the largest food companies in India with the flagship brand Fortune cooking oils, Adani Wilmar Limited is the number one edible oil brand in India with 21% market share. This year was witness to the company scaling its highest numbers in terms of top-line and bottom line performance. Spurred by the quantum of growth seen in the business, an expansion plan has been launched on a significant scale.

Adani Agri Logistics is proud to provide seamless end-to-end bulk supply chain to Food Corporation of India and having established India’s first integrated bulk handling, storage & logistics system for food grains. In the storage segment, the company has been awarded bids for 3 locations each for 50K MT out of recently floated tenders by Food Corporation of India Ltd. at Dahod, Borivali & Dhamora respectively.

Adani Agrifresh has instituted India’s largest integrated apple supply chain initiative with ultramodern storage infrastructure. This unique business model ensures farm fresh fruits to the consumers and enhances growth and well-being of the farming communities. One of our flagship pro-farmer initiatives is focused on offering horticulture expertise at the farm-gate. A trained field team and pool of renowned scientists reach out to the business network of over 15,000 farmers in Himachal Pradesh for providing advisory services to boost production with enhanced quality, thereby generating higher income. 90% of these farmers are marginal, who do not possess the wherewithal to be aware of horticultural best practices such as pricing and post-harvest management.

With an intention to help transform India into a world-class Adani Solar’s mission is to mount a large-scale manufacturing setup to support low cost generation capacities and develop export capabilities from India, manufacturing hub of defence systems, Adani has delved into the Defence and Aerospace terrain. During the financial year, two breakthrough developments came to the fore. Firstly, we collaborated with defence and security company ‘Saab’ to design, develop and produce Gripen for India. The canvas of this collaboration would also encompass projects, programs and technologies of national importance to India. Secondly, we kick started the process of setting up a 50,000 sq. ft. world class carbon composite aero-structure manufacturing facility at Hyderabad. As India Inc. evolves at an accelerated pace, it becomes imminent to unlock the potential of the bottom of the pyramid. Over the year, Adani Group’s focus on developing key social levers of nation building has remained as steadfast as contributing to the progress of economic levers of the country. Through systemic and periodic interventions in education, community health, sustainable livelihood and community infrastructure development, Adani Group has touched lives of over 5,00,000 families spanning 1470+ villages/ towns and 13 states of India.

Moving ahead, I am both excited and inspired to sustain our leadership status, add value to our basket of businesses, transcend our own benchmarks, harness new possibilities and thereby contribute positively towards unlocking the nation’s potential and placing it on a higher orbit.