On 14 February 2025, an enraged crowd set fire to vehicles servicing the Adani Group’s Bandhaura power plant in central India, following an accident in which a coal truck allegedly ran over and killed two local men. The vehicles were torched on a stretch of the road that connects the power plant with the Adani-operated Suliyari coal mine. Locals fear could be many more such accidents after the power plant undergoes a huge expansion – from 1200 MW to 4400 MW.
According to local police, at least six buses, used by the power plant to ferry its officials and executives, and two trucks, one of which was coal laden, were completely gutted in the fire. Police reported no serious injuries or loss of life. However, they said that some officials and employees of the power plant who had been on the buses suffered a thrashing.
‘The enraged locals numbered hundreds,’ said a police spokesperson. ‘They blocked the roads, thereby delaying arrival of police to the spot where the buses and trucks were set on fire.
‘Even after police managed to reach the spot, they were confronted by the angry crowd. A few police officers sustained minor injuries in the incident.’
Videos of the incident can be seen here:
गडाखाड बाजार में अदानी की गाड़ियों में लगी आग
A First Information Report (FIR) for the incident has been registered at the local police station. No arrests had been made at the time that this report was filed. Police said they are on the lookout for certain people who have been identified. Meanwhile, security has been beefed up at the power plant and for the vehicles ferrying employees.
The Suliyari mine belongs to the public-sector Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation. The Adani Group is the mine’s developer and operator (MDO) and procures coal for its 1200 MW Bandhaura power plant from it. The Bandhaura power plant also receives coal from other sources, which is trucked from the nearest railway siding at a place called Gajra Bahra. Hundreds of truck trips are made every day from Suliyari, about 32 km from the power plant, and Gajra Bahra, roughly 16 km from the power plant, on roads used by local people.
The accident in which the two local men were killed took place around 11 am on 14 February on Ameliya Ghat in hilly terrain where coal is transported through the forests on trucks. Footage, reportedly retrieved by police from a camera on the dashboard of the truck that caused the accident, indicates that the vehicle was travelling at around 72 km per hour when the motorbike approached from the opposite direction.
The two men were thrown off the motorbike as they tried to navigate their way through a narrow space between the oncoming coal truck and other trucks parked along the road. The truck driver lost control of the wheel after the accident and crashed into trees alongside the road. AdaniWatch could not independently verify the authenticity of the dashcam footage, which has been carried on news websites of reputed media houses in India.
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The deceased have been identified by police as Ramlalu Yadav (42) and Sagar Prajapati (38). They lived in villages near the power plant. Their dead bodies were handed over to their families after autopsy examinations were conducted. The last rites were conducted a day later, on 15 February, as police upped security and kept a tight vigil in the area anticipating more violence.
The angry crowd had reportedly waited for the buses ferrying the employees to emerge from the power plant after completion of the day duty shift, at around 7 pm. Reportedly, they were angered over police inaction against the power-plant management. Some of the people reportedly assaulted a few employees of the power plant after forcing them out of the buses. Several videos of these incidents emerged on social media afterwards.
Locals allege that while the number of coal-laden trucks has increased in the area, proper surveillance of these vehicles is not being undertaken, resulting in frequent accidents and traffic jams on the roads.
‘There is a lot of frustration and anger amongst local people over the failure of the police and administration to control these trucks,’ a source, who chose to remain anonymous, told this correspondent. ‘These trucks are like monsters on roads. The people’s anger boiled over with the accident in which the motorcyclist and his passenger were killed.
‘To compound it, the company management did not agree to provide jobs to the kin of the accused. The kin were also unhappy over the allegedly meagre sums of compensation offered to them.’
The area where the buses were torched is a short distance from a marketplace called Garakhand Bazaar. During a field visit by this correspondent to Singrauli in April 2023, people at the marketplace complained about the pollution, accidents and traffic jams caused by the coal trucks. Several trucks were also found to be travelling without registration number plates.
In the absence of a dedicated railway siding for the power plant, coal is transported long distances by trucks on the local roads. A 4.6-km-long conveyor belt has been envisaged – for the second and third phase expansion of the project which will see its capacity expanded to a mammoth 4400 Mega Watt (MW) – from the proposed Dhirauli coal mine in the Singrauli coalfields to the power plant. But it is not expected to be in place until December 2026.
The 1200 MW power plant consumes 5.5 million tons per annum (MTPA) of coal at present. Work is underway to expand the capacity of the project from 1200 to 2800 MW in the first phase. Its completion will mean an additional 6.85 MTPA of coal. Following the second phase of expansion, another 6.5 MTPA of coal will be required in the power plant. The number of coal-ferrying trucks is set to dramatically increase in the absence of a conveyor belt or a dedicated railway siding.
Basic facts and figures
- Project: Bandhaura Thermal Power Plant
- Company and project proponent: Mahan Energen Limited (an Adani-owned company)
- Location: Bandhaura, Nagwa, Karsua, Khairahi in the Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh
- Current capacity: 2 units of 600 Mega Watt (MW) each: 1200 MW total
- Current status: Operational; construction occurring for addition of 2 units of 800 MW each (Environmental Clearance granted on 2 August 2023)
- Proposed expansion: Addition of 2 more units of 800 MW each (Environmental clearance recommended on 24 January 2025; total expansion of 3.2 GW)
- Total project cost (including cost of existing unit and unit under construction): Rs 21,600 crore (US $2.5 billion)
- Cost of expansion: Rs 13,863 crore (US $1.6 billion)
