- Gautam Adani urged Indian credit rating agencies to adopt broader analytical frameworks for infrastructure projects.
- He argued that conventional models fail to capture the full economic and strategic value of integrated “platform infrastructure.”
- Adani cited projects like Mundra, Vizhinjam, and Khavda as examples of infrastructure creating new markets and industrial ecosystems.
- He emphasized the need for “wider lenses” to assess ecosystem multipliers, strategic resilience, and adjacency value, not lower credit standards.
- The proposed framework is crucial for evaluating complex, interconnected projects vital for India’s economic development by 2047.
- Mumbai, Aug 31 (PTI) Billionaire Gautam Adani urged India’s credit-rating agencies on Monday to develop broader analytical frameworks for infrastructure projects, arguing that conventional models can underestimate the economic and strategic value of large platforms that create new markets and industrial ecosystems.
Speaking at the CareEdge Group Annual Summit in Mumbai, the Adani Group chairman said India did not need lower credit standards but “wider lenses” to assess infrastructure whose value extends beyond the cash flows of a single asset.
“India does not need lower standards. India needs wider lenses,” Adani said, calling on CareEdge to develop what he described as the world’s first comprehensive credit framework for “integrated platform infrastructure.”
The remarks come as India accelerates investment in ports, renewable energy, power transmission, digital infrastructure and manufacturing as it seeks to build a more developed economy by 2047.
Adani argued that conventional credit models, often built around individual assets and projected cash flows, can struggle to capture the economic spillovers created when infrastructure is connected to other assets.
He divided infrastructure into three categories: replacement infrastructure, where traditional rating models are generally adequate; growth infrastructure, where models should account for ecosystem effects; and “platform infrastructure,” which he said can create entirely new capabilities, markets and industrial clusters.
“Platforms like Mundra, Vizhinjam and Khavda do not just satisfy existing demand. They create new demand. They create new ecosystems. They create new capabilities,” Adani said.
From ports to industrial platforms Adani cited Mundra port in Gujarat as an example of infrastructure whose value expanded far beyond the original asset.
What began decades ago as a port project on a relatively undeveloped coastline has evolved into a broader logistics and industrial ecosystem linked to rail, logistics centres, power generation and manufacturing, he said.
Mundra is now a major maritime gateway to northern and northwestern India, with extensive multimodal connectivity and industrial infrastructure around the port.
Adani said such projects illustrate the limitations of assessing infrastructure solely through standalone discounted-cash-flow models.
“If we build only for the demand we can see today, India will always be late for the opportunities of tomorrow,” he said.
He made a similar argument for Vizhinjam International Seaport in Kerala, saying India had for years relied on overseas hubs for transshipment despite the port’s strategic location close to major global shipping routes.
Vizhinjam, commissioned in December 2024, is India’s first deep-draft mega transshipment port. It handled 1.3 million TEUs in its first year and crossed 2 million TEUs within 18 months, according to Adani Ports. The port is being expanded to 5.7 million TEUs of annual capacity by December 2028.
Adani said traditional financial assessments had struggled to capture the broader strategic value of the project.
“The greatest risk was never in building Vizhinjam. The greatest risk was India continuing to believe that it could not,” he said.
