According to the Washington Post, observers see the bailout as evidence of India’s deepening corporate-state nexus, where Adani’s fortunes mirror the government’s economic ambitions and taxpayers ultimately bear the financial risk of sustaining one of Modi’s most powerful allies.
Published Oct 25, 2025 | 2:31 PM ⚊ Updated Oct 25, 2025 | 2:31 PM
Billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani (Supplied)
Synopsis: Internal documents accessed by the Post show that in May 2025, the Union finance ministry, its Department of Financial Services (DFS), LIC, and the policy think tank NITI Aayog coordinated an investment strategy that funneled billions into Adani Group bonds and equity. The plan involved a $585-million bond issue for Adani Ports that LIC financed alone. (This piece was originally published on thewire.in)
A Washington Post investigation details how the Modi government quietly devised a $3.9 billion plan to rescue Gautam Adani’s debt-laden conglomerate by directing money from the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).
Internal documents accessed by the Post show that in May 2025, the Union finance ministry, its Department of Financial Services (DFS), LIC, and the policy think tank NITI Aayog coordinated an investment strategy that funneled billions into Adani Group bonds and equity. The plan involved a $585-million bond issue for Adani Ports that LIC financed alone.
“The plan came to fruition the same month that Adani’s ports subsidiary needed to raise roughly $585 million in a bond issue to refinance existing debt. On May 30, Adani Group announced that the whole bond had been financed by a single investor — LIC — in a deal immediately decried by critics as a misuse of public funds,” the report notes.
The proposal’s stated goals included “signalling confidence” in Adani and attracting other investors, despite the conglomerate’s 20% debt increase over the previous year and the ongoing US corruption and fraud charges. The US Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission have charged Adani and his associates of a multibillion-dollar bribery and fraud scheme involving false statements and $250 million in illegal payments to win energy contracts.
Adani has denied wrongdoing, calling the charges “baseless.” This October, the SEC said that Indian authorities have failed to act on its requests to serve summons and complaints to Adani Group executives.
The report also notes that the 2023 report by the US short-seller Hindenburg accused the Adani Group of stock manipulation and financial irregularities. An investigation by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), dismissed two of the allegations in September, this year. While Hindenburg has since shut shop, the fallout was palpable in other ways. The Post report says that several major American and European banks that Adani had looked to for loans were hesitant to help under these circumstances.
Along came Indian officials who in the DFS documents accessed by the Post described Adani as a “visionary entrepreneur,” viewing his businesses spanning ports, energy, and infrastructure as vital to national economic goals. Analysts whom the reporters of the Post spoke to warned that LIC, which insures millions of Indians – many of them low income – faces high risk by investing heavily in a politically connected private group already under global scrutiny.
Hemindra Hazari, an independent analyst quoted in the report said that it seemed “abnormal” for LIC to invest such large sums of money in a private corporate entity. “If anything happens to LIC … it’s only the government that can bail it out,” he added.
Modi’s close ties to Adani, have been at the heart of charges from many quarters, including Opposition leaders and members of civil society. The Adani group has termed such charges as a ‘conspiracy against India.’
According to the Washington Post, observers see the bailout as evidence of India’s deepening corporate-state nexus, where Adani’s fortunes mirror the government’s economic ambitions and taxpayers ultimately bear the financial risk of sustaining one of Modi’s most powerful allies.
In a series of tweets on Friday, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra tore into the Modi government and the conglomerate. “All patriots out there & all media houses – how about some attention & coverage on how ₹30,000 crores of Indian tax payer money used as Adani’s piggybank courtesy @FinMinIndia? … “Modi government keeps funding @gautam_adani & the Indian people have to keep bailing him out.”
All patriots out there & all media houses – how about some attention & coverage on how ₹30,000 crores of Indian tax payer money used as Adani’s piggybank courtesy @FinMinIndia?
@IndiaToday @htTweets @IndianExpress— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) October 24, 2025
Early on October 25, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also posted on X about the revelations.
“The costs of throwing public money at crony firms became clear when LIC suffered a staggering $7,850 crore loss in just four hours of trading on 21 September 2024, following the indictment of Gautam Adani and seven of his associates in the United States. Adani has been accused of orchestrating a Z2,000 crore bribery scheme to secure high-priced solar power contracts in India. The Modi government has refused, for nearly a year, to serve a US SEC summons to the Prime Minister’s most favoured business conglomerate,” Ramesh said.
He added that the alleged “Modani MegaScam” includes misuse of agencies to coerce asset sales, rigged privatisations, inflated coal imports, and politically motivated contracts.
Our statement on the latest revelations in the Modani MegaScam: of the forced diversion of Rs 33,000 crore of public money by LIC to ‘signal confidence in the Adani Group’ pic.twitter.com/cDWBJTqKPH
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) October 25, 2025
Meanwhile, in a statement to the newspaper, the Adani Group “categorically denied” any role in the government’s decision, calling suggestions of political favoritism “unfounded” and insisting its rise “predates Modi’s national leadership”.
The report notes at the end that Ravi Nair, the independent investigative journalist who co-wrote the piece, was slapped with a defamation suit by the Adani Group in September this year over a piece he co-wrote for Frontline magazine, as well as online interviews and social media posts where he discussed his reporting for the Guardian.
The LIC too issued a statement, which read: “The allegations leveled by the Washington Post that the investment decisions of LIC are influenced by external factors are false, baseless, and far from truth. No such document or plan as alleged in the article has ever been prepared by LIC, which creates a roadmap for infusing funds by LIC into Adani group of companies.”
“The investment decisions are taken by LIC independently as per Board approved policies after detailed due diligence. Department of Financial Services or any other body does not have any role in such decisions. LIC has ensured highest standards of due diligence and all its investment decisions have been undertaken in compliance with extant policies, provisions in the Acts and regulatory guidelines, in the best interest of all its stakeholders.”
“These purported statements in the article appear to have been made with the intentions to prejudice the well settled decision-making process of LIC and also to tarnish the reputation and image of LIC and the strong financial sector foundations in India.”
(This piece was originally published on thewire.in and has been reproduced with permission.)
