Snooping scandal: Ecolibrium says Guj project not funded by govt

Ecolibrium Energy, now in the centre of the Gujarat snooping scandal, has clarified to the Business Standard that the company implemented the smartgrid project in Gujarat Sachivalaya in 2010 did not receive any funding from Gujarat Energy Development Authority (Geda).

The project was funded by Torrent Power, a private sector company, a report in the Business Standard said today.

The clarification is in response to a report in the newspaper yesterday that said the company’s promoters, Harit P Soni and Chintan P Soni, are brothers of the woman on whom Amit Shah, chief minister Narendra Modi’s aide, was allegedly keeping a watch on. Pranlal Soni, father of the siblings, had issued a statement later saying it was he who sought Modi’s help to watch his daughter’s movements.

Yesterday’s article, however, just said the company got its first big break from the Gujarat project. The Sachivalaya in in the general administration department, which is under Modi, it said.

It also quoted Chintan Soni from an earlier BS report . He had told the newspaper that the company struggled for eight months until it bagged the project. “Once we cleared the hurdle of getting the first purchase order, we showed it to CIIE ( IIM- A’s Centre of Incubation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship). The order got us incubated there,” he had been quoted as saying in the report.

Today’s report says the project was implemented under a tripartite pact between Torrent Power, Geda and Ecolibrium. It also says the project was not the first one it implemented.

Ecolibrium, its website says, is an energy management solutions company. It offers technology-enabled solutions that help commercial, institutional and industrial organisations cut transmission and distribution losses. Other focus areas of the company are demand response programs for distribution companies and renewable energy integration in the grid.

Read an earlier profile of the company in BS here .