Legal petitions filed at Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court last year, challenging Adani Green Energy’s proposed wind farm, were withdrawn on Tuesday, a month after the company announced its decision to exit the contentious renewable energy project.
The Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS), one of the petitioners, said that during Tuesday’s hearing, the Attorney General’s Department submitted a letter dated February 12 from Adani Green Energy to Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment (BOI), stating their decision to pull out of the project. “It was further submitted by the Deputy Solicitor General that the withdrawal was further confirmed through direct communication between the Ministry of Energy and Adani’s local agent. As a result, WNPS, through its legal counsel, moved to withdraw its application,” the Society said in a statement. Four other petitions, including from local civic groups and transparency watchdogs, were withdrawn, local media reported.
From the time the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration approved it in 2022, Adani Green’s wind farm initiative — the 484-MW renewable energy project was to be set up in Mannar and Pooneryn towns in northern Sri Lanka with an investment of $442 million — has remained controversial. Locals and environmentalists opposed the project citing potential risks to a key aviation corridor, while corruption watchdogs and some in political opposition raised questions over the government choosing a private investor without any competitive bidding process. Amid persisting concern over the apparent lack of transparency, the successor government of Ranil Wickremesinghe took the project forward.
Pre-poll pledge
Meanwhile, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, then in Opposition, made a pre-poll pledge to cancel the “corrupt project”. Following his election victory, however, the government sought to renegotiate the deal to bring down the power purchasing tariff that it deemed high.
Meanwhile, in February, Adani Green announced its decision to withdraw from the project. In a Parliamentary speech soon after, President Dissanayake said awarding energy projects at an “excessive tariff” — $0.0826, or 8.26 cents, per kWh — “cannot be justified”. While welcoming energy investments based on a competitive tariff, Sri Lanka “will not privilege a specific company or country”, he said.
Meera Sreenivasan is The Hindu Correspondent in Colombo
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