India needs wider lenses to rate transformational infrastructure: Adani

Pioneer News Service

New Delhi

India needs rating frameworks that go beyond conventional financial models and recognise the wider economic and strategic value of transformational infrastructure, Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani said while addressing a CareEdge Group event.

Congratulating CareEdge Group on completing more than three decades, Adani said credibility, trust and capital were essential to converting entrepreneurial ideas into institutions and national capabilities. He noted that his relationship with the group spans nearly two decades and now covers more than ₹3 lakh crore of rated assets across over 100 entities.

Adani stressed that his call was not for relaxed scrutiny or easier ratings but for “wider lenses” to assess infrastructure projects. He said traditional models often evaluate individual assets through standalone cash flows, whereas large infrastructure platforms can create ecosystems whose broader economic value may not be immediately visible.

Citing the Mundra port in Gujarat, he said what initially appeared to be a project facing uncertain demand and execution challenges had evolved into a major commercial gateway connected to railways, logistics, power and industrial ecosystems. Such interconnected infrastructure, he argued, creates a compounding economic impact that conventional models may fail to capture.

He also cited the Vizhinjam port in Kerala, saying the project addressed a long-standing strategic challenge for India by reducing dependence on foreign transhipment hubs. While conventional financial assessments had found the project difficult to justify, its strategic value extended beyond immediate profitability, he said.

Adani’s third example was the 30-gigawatt renewable energy platform being developed at Khavda in Gujarat’s Rann of Kutch. He said the project should not be viewed merely as a power-generation facility, but as a platform connecting clean energy, artificial intelligence, manufacturing and digital infrastructure.

He proposed three categories of infrastructure—replacement, growth and platform infrastructure. While conventional rating frameworks are suitable for replacement projects, he said growth and platform infrastructure require models capable of assessing ecosystem multipliers, strategic resilience and adjacency value.

Linking infrastructure with the emerging AI economy, Adani said AI ultimately depends on physical infrastructure including electricity, data centres, cooling, transmission networks and land. He suggested that future competitiveness would depend not only on software and algorithms but also on the ability to build infrastructure that enables intelligence to scale.

Adani challenged CareEdge to develop what he called the world’s first comprehensive credit framework for integrated platform infrastructure, potentially establishing an Indian benchmark for emerging economies.

He concluded that India’s 2047 aspirations would require ambition to earn trust, trust to unlock capital and capital to create national capabilities.