In today’s Finshots, we tell you how India’s richest men are turning a salt desert into the world’s biggest clean energy hub. And why the story may not be as clean as it sounds.

The Story

Kutch is a land most Indians don’t think about. But almost every Indian depends on it.

Why? Because nearly three-quarters of the country’s salt comes from here.

That’s thanks to an odd history. In 1819, a massive earthquake cut Kutch off from the Arabian Sea. The sea receded, shallow plains formed, and each monsoon they flooded before evaporating into blinding sheets of salt.

Over generations, people adapted. But the very geography that produced salt also stalled development. The summers scorch, the monsoons flood, the soil is poor, and the remoteness meant little industry took root.

Until now. Because if you have 320 sunny days a year, some of India’s highest solar radiation (5.5–6 kWh/m²/day), and steady coastal winds, you don’t just have a desert. You have a renewable energy jackpot. And you can turn it into one of the best renewable corridors in the country.

So it’s no surprise then that India’s richest men have staked their claims. Together, Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani have acquired close to 550,000 acres and 460,000 acres here, respectively. Yep, that’s close to a million acres! Or about 8–10% of the district’s total area.

Reliance is pouring 75,000 crores here as it wants to build what it calls a “fully integrated new energy ecosystem”. The idea is to have 20 GW of solar modules, 40 GWh of batteries, and 3 million tonnes of green hydrogen annually by 2032.

So the idea is to control not just power plants, but the very molecules of tomorrow.

Adani, meanwhile, is going for brute scale. At Khavda, on the India–Pakistan border, his group is building a 30-GW sprawl of solar and wind farms, backed by long-term power agreements and a private transmission network.

On paper, their strategies look different. Reliance wants to turn sunlight into hydrogen and batteries. Adani wants to flood the grid with electrons. But in practice, they’re stepping on each other’s toes. Because both need factories, both are capturing vast tracts of land, both need transmission lines, and both are chasing the same government incentives.

Which means this is a race for control over India’s green future.

But what looks like a jackpot on paper carries risks when you zoom out to the industry level.

For one, there’s the danger of consolidation. Analysts at Bernstein warn that if Reliance and Adani execute their plans, they could control half of India’s wafer manufacturing and up to 90% of polysilicon capacity. Which means smaller players like Waaree and Premier Energies might survive, but they’ll struggle to keep up.

Then there are hurdles at company levels.

Start with Reliance. Its grand hydrogen vision only works if it can actually move that hydrogen. But pipelines are years away, making transport costly and inefficient. Worse, it has only 3 GW of grid connectivity mapped till 2030. So unless it acquires transmission assets or finds a workaround, its gleaming gigafactories risk sitting idle.

Adani, meanwhile, carries coal baggage. His group remains one of India’s biggest coal producers, and the controversial Carmichael mine in Australia still ships fuel abroad. For global investors, that creates a credibility gap: is this a pivot, or just green icing on a black cake?

Then there’s the danger of overbuild. While India’s renewable push is massive, the transmission grid still leans heavily (74%) on coal for stability. And storage solutions like batteries or pumped hydro are expensive. So if capacity in Kutch outpaces demand or evacuation lines, you end up with stranded assets.

And finally, economics. Green hydrogen is still 2–3x costlier than fossil hydrogen, and looks viable only because of subsidies. And for Adani, margins depend on locking in big power agreements… but states are moving toward auctions that drive tariffs down.

And hovering over both groups is the spectre of monopoly power. If two conglomerates corner wafers, polysilicon, and transmission, the sector risks becoming a closed shop, leaving India’s green transition overly dependent on them. And this risk has been flagged by the Indian Army too.

Take Adani’s land, for instance. Khavda sits right on the Pakistan border, once off-limits under Defence Ministry rules. But the buffer was cut from 10 km to 1 km, and land earlier held by SECI, the government’s solar agency, was reallocated to Adani’s subsidiaries. And SECI had no idea about the development Adani was going to carry on this land. In effect, one of India’s most sensitive frontiers turned into a private energy park.

Reliance’s history isn’t spotless either. Its Jamnagar complex sits on the Gulf of Kutch, tagged an ecologically critical zone. Yet pipelines and desalination plants were cleared despite warnings about risks to corals and mangroves.

Which means when these companies pitch a “green revolution” in Kutch, they do so on a history of rules bent, audits ignored, and exceptions normalised.

And if you think that’s a lot of damage, wait until you hear about the ecology risks and communities at stake this green revolution brings.

Take the Great Indian Bustard. The critically endangered bird often collides with power lines across its habitats. The Supreme Court has ordered lines to be sent underground, but the process is slow and developers keep lobbying for exceptions.

Move further in and you hit the Banni grasslands, one of Asia’s largest. Maldhari pastoralists graze camels and buffalo here. But once laced with transmission corridors and fences, the common areas shrink into fragments. For the community, it feels like being nudged out of their own home.

And then there’s water — the desert’s cruel irony. Every megawatt of solar panels can gulp thousands of litres. Scale that to tens of gigawatts and you get billions of litres in one of India’s driest regions.

The final irony is that much of this green energy is for Google and Meta’s data centres. On paper, Silicon Valley cuts its carbon footprint. In practice, the land, water, and ecological costs sit in Kutch.

But none of this means Kutch can’t host the green revolution. It very well can. It just has to be built differently.

The first step is corridor discipline. Power lines today pop up wherever projects demand, slicing through bustard habitats and grazing lands. Instead, Gujarat and the Centre need mapped corridors that avoid sensitive zones.

Second, cumulative assessments. Clearances today treat each solar park as if it exists alone. But zone-level studies that add up bird deaths, water stress, and land loss, and make the data public, are critical.

Third, commons and consent. The Banni grasslands aren’t wastelands but community resources. So recognising grazing rights or structured leases with revenue-sharing can turn them into partners instead of collateral damage.

Fourth, water neutrality. Hydrogen and solar could consume billions of litres if unchecked. So robotic cleaning, closed-loop washing, and strict audits must be mandatory.

And finally, transparency. As we saw, border rules and coastal buffers were bent quietly for private companies. The rationale and safeguards should be published, with sunset clauses.

So yeah, the stakes aren’t just local. India is betting its $1 trillion-plus clean energy future on deserts like Kutch. It wants 500 GW of renewables by 2030, and investors see these projects as proof India can power AI data centres and hydrogen exports without coal. In that sense, Kutch is a test case. Whether the transition will be fast and fair, or whether speed will come at the cost of sustainability.

Which brings us back to the desert duel. On paper, both Reliance and Adani could win. But neither wins if the land itself loses.

So tell us. If the price of the future is turning a living desert into an industrial one… is it development?

Until then…

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