Promoters of Subhash Chandra’s Essel Group recovered nearly ₹600 crores from State governments on Thursday, sources working closely with the promoter family told businessline. Promoters also appear confident to get back over ₹1,200 crores over the next 1.5 years, as per sources.

The key sources of recovery includes the Municipality Unit in Maharashtra, with whom the company has worked with on various projects in the past like the Sion-Panvel highway; and Public Sector Units (PSUs) in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. Sources said the recoveries were after “a series of negotiations, follow ups, hair-cuts.”

The company has been trying to recover these dues from the State government since 2019, by when the company had accumulated an overall debt of ₹20,000 crore. In the following year, Essel Group sold part of its pledged shares in Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. Chandra considered ZEE to be the ‘crown jewels’ of his businesses. His personal stake was divested down to 3.99 per cent. By 2021, it settled over 91 per cent of the debt to lenders, selling many of its assets, including businesses in infrastructure, renewable energy, road projects among others.

‘Evaluate opportunities’

While promoters are still aggressively recovering other dues, the Promoter Family has not yet finalised the re-investment approach of the recovered amount. Sources said they will evaluate opportunities in the existing businesses. Queries sent by businessline to Essel Group remained unanswered.

Earlier, Chandra has said he would explore new business opportunities in the video digital space as well as AI/ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) in the video space without getting into conflicts with ZEE.

Last year, Chandra announced launch of a news app Pinewz, an AI based news app for users to get news from each city and village by entering a pin code of the desired area

Published on June 12, 2025