How a railway line made the Adani family richer by Rs 5,000 crore

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Editor's note: On 27 January, the Adani group received approval from the National Company Law Tribunal to restructure some of its corporate entities. The goal of the exercise, the company had said, was to consolidate all its railway assets under Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd, the listed entity looking after Adani’s ports and logistics businesses. The consolidation, which was proposed back in March last year and effective 1 April 2021, would help APSEZ “to participate in Indian Railways PPP projects without having to compete with similar businesses in the Adani portfolio, a position that is in full alignment with the equity interests of minority shareholders,” the group said in a statement.  Before this restructuring, APSEZ owned almost all of the group’s railway assets except one—the 77 km railway line in the forests of Chhattisgarh that linked an Adani-operated coal mine with the nearest railway station.  While the consolidation makes sense for a growing conglomerate of Adani’s size, the restructuring stands out for a number of reasons.  One, filings by Adani companies with the Registrar of Companies reveal that in the course of …