The Chhattisgarh’s boiler explosion is a symptom of Vedanta’s systematic disregard for ESG. It follows dozens of other industrial incidents and human rights violations that the GoI, and ESG mandated stakeholders, ignore.
April 16, 2026 – On April 14, 2026, an incident at Vedanta’s Chattisgarh Athena Power Plant led to the death of at least 20 workers and over 36 workers injured[1].
Vedanta claimed that the incident involved personnel from its subcontractor NGSL.
Media has reported that the cause was a failure in the boiler tube. There are also conflicting reports that it was the main steam pipe carrying steam from the boiler to the turbine.
The unit that caused the incident was likely unit 1, as unit 2 was still under commission.
The GOI’s Ministry of Power provide annual accounts of the status of thermal power projects in the country. These are publicly available.
On July 7, 2022, Vedanta purchased the Athena TPP out of liquidation for Rs 564 crore (~$70m in 2022).
From the April 2024 BSR, Vedanta expected the plant to be revived by FY2030-31.
From the April 2025 BSR, Vedanta moved up the expected commissioning dates for both units to 2025-26 and 2026-27.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t get the GoI to ever reprimand crony capitalism. Unfortunately, workplace accidents occur systematically across Vedanta’s crony-capitalist enterprise. We have reported on dozens of abhorrent “incidents”, many of which are ongoing, to deaf ears from both the GoI and from Vedanta’s vast number of global institutional investors with ESG mandates.
Profits from Anil’s Crony Capitalist empire are transferred, pre-tax, to the United Kingdom via exorbitant brand fees even though Vedanta Resources does not maintain an office in the UK. The GoI simply allows Vedanta to commit what we perceive to be blatant tax fraud.
To salt wounds further: the GoI has announced that the Indian taxpayer will fund bereavement payments to the families of Vedanta’s victims.
Despite these epic ESG failures and the inability to successfully execute any project on time this decade: Anil’s message across social media channels and public events has consistently been that the GoI should hand over more public assets to Vedanta (ostensibly, a British company), roll back regulation, and self-certify.
Anil Agarwal is not a serious person. There will be more disasters. Shareholders rejoice.
1. What happened to the boilers during the work halt (2017 – 2024)?
2. What tests were conducted post 2022? Was the hydro test redone?
3. Why did Vedanta move commissioning from FY2030 to 2025-27?
4. What changed operationally or financially to accelerate this timetable revision?
5. What was the failure mechanism?
Reports & Documents
Be the first to hear about our research & news
