Recent media reports suggest that the State Bank of India (SBI) – India’s largest public bank – is ‘all set to offer’ a billion-dollar loan to Adani’s Carmichael coal mine in Australia. These reports come five years after a similar proposal was scuttled. In the absence of official confirmation from the SBI, the community has re-launched protests against the bank.
Angry at news reports that the State Bank of India is about to loan Adani money for its Carmichael mine, campaigners in the Indian state of Goa have protested outside the bank’s offices. The action was in solidarity with similar protests occurring in Australia and around the world. It is the first StopAdani protest to occur in India.
Rival investors are up in arms as the Adani group makes a last-minute attempt to acquire a bankrupt home-loan company in India. One such investor, the Piramal group, has written a letter to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi claiming that Adani’s attempt violates the rules of the bidding process.
The decision of the central bank and banking regulator to increase the group exposure limit that banks have in calculating the quantum of loans given to a particular corporate conglomerate as a proportion of the total loans given by the specific bank, will benefit India’s biggest private company, Reliance Industries Limited. This is the fifth article in a series.
There has been a rush of stake sales in Reliance Jio to international investors. Questions relating to whether the government has addressed national security concerns while allowing these foreign investments remain unanswered. This is the fourth in a series of articles on India’s largest private corporate group.
