This comes as the company looks to expand into the domestic and overseas renewable energy sector
INDIA’S top renewable energy agency has sent a notice to Reliance Power, a company run by Anil Ambani. According to a notice dated Wednesday (Nov 13), the agency asked why it should not initiate criminal proceedings after a subsidiary of the power producer submitted fake documents for a bid.
Last week, Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) barred the power company from participating in its clean energy project tenders for three years, after it found that a unit of the company had submitted a fake endorsement of a foreign bank guarantee.
SECI said on Wednesday that the bank guarantee submitted by the unit, Reliance Nu Bess, was also fake.
“The repeated submission of a fake bank guarantee along with its counterfeit endorsement has been deemed a deliberate act by the bidder, intended to vitiate the tendering process and to secure the project capacity through fraudulent means,” SECI added.
Reliance Power did not immediately respond to a Reuters request seeking comment on the notice.
The power company said last week that it would legally challenge SECI’s ban and had lodged a police complaint against the third party that arranged the bank guarantee.
The notice and ban come as Reliance Power, a coal power generator, is looking to expand into the domestic and overseas renewable energy sector.
Indian companies are increasingly looking to set up clean-energy projects as the country targets 500 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy by 2030 as part of its 2070 net-zero goal, up from the current installed capacity of about 154 GW.
In August, Anil Ambani was banned from the securities market for five years and fined about US$3 million by the Indian markets regulator on charges of fund diversion. REUTERS
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