Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman
| Photo Credit:
PTI
Finance Ministry data presented in Lok Sabha on Monday showed that investment exposure of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) in the Adani Group of companies is less than 5 per cent. The Ministry stressed that it did not give any direction to the LIC to invest in a particular company.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the House that the data shows that the book value of LIC’s investment exposure in the equity of public and private sector companies, as on September 30, was over ₹9.39 lakh crore. All the holdings in Adani Group of Companies were over ₹38,600 crore, or 4.1 per cent. On the basis of amount, none of the Adani Group companies features in the top 25, Finance Ministry data showed. Apart from equity, LIC has invested another ₹9,625.77 crore in debt instruments of the conglomerate.
Sitharaman stressed that the Finance Ministry does not issue advisory or directions to the LIC regarding its investment decisions. She emphasised that the investments made by the State-owned insurer in the Adani Group were as per the established SOPs.
“The Ministry of Finance does not issue any advisory/direction to LIC in connection with matters related to investment of LIC fund,” she said. The investment decisions of the State-owned insurer, she added, are taken by “LIC alone, following strict due diligence, risk assessment and fiduciary compliance”.
Such decisions are governed by the provisions of the Insurance Act, 1938, as well as regulations issued by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) (wherever applicable) from time to time, she said.
International scrutiny
In October, a report in The Washington Post said that the Finance Ministry officials orchestrated a plan to steer LIC into investing in the Adani Group earlier this year, when the ports-to-energy conglomerate was facing a debt pile and scrutiny in the US. The report highlighted LIC’s May 2025 investment of $570 million (around ₹5,000 crore) in Adani Ports & SEZ (APSEZ).
Sitharaman said, “LIC has invested ₹5,000 crore in secured non-convertible debentures (NCD) issued by the Adani Ports Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) in May 2025, after doing due diligence following established Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) as per their Board-approved policies.” She said LIC has invested in the top 500 companies listed on NSE and BSE, and a major portion of its investment currently is in the larger companies.
Detailing checks-and-balances that have been put in place, she said the investment functions of LIC are verified by concurrent auditors, statutory auditors, system auditors, internal financial control (IFC) auditors and internal vigilance team. “Periodical inspections are also done by the sector Regulator IRDAI in this regard,” she said. “There is no direct oversight by the government on investments made by LIC.”
Detailing LIC’s top investments, Sitharaman said among the private firms, the insurer had the highest equity investment of ₹40,901.38 crore in Reliance Industries Ltd, followed ₹38,846.33 crore in Infosys, ₹31,926.89 crore in Tata Consultancy Services, ₹31,664.69 crore in HDFC Bank, and ₹30,133.49 crore in Hindustan Unilever.
Published on December 1, 2025
