Last year, officials came to Tarluvada, a village near Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, with a “golden opportunity”: Google’s $15bn AI datacentre, its largest outside the US, to be built with the Adani Group. They promised jobs, rising land prices and generous compensation.
What came was fencing. Land the government had allotted to 520 families 20 years ago has been taken back. In April this year, Adani’s security guards fenced off plots villagers had farmed for years. Dalit farmer P Venkat Rao says he was pressured into giving up his only acre, and the promised replacement land and one job per family never came.
The project was announced at 1 GW. State environmental clearances, issued in nine days without public consultation, allow 2.51 GW, over 30% of Andhra Pradesh’s yearly energy use, while 75% of India’s grid runs on coal. Over 100 acres of forest are going. Google’s subsidies are estimated at ₹22,000 crore over 20 years.
This is development by a state government allied with Modi’s BJP: profit to Google and Adani, the bill to Dalit farmers and the forest.
Source: The Guardian, 26 September 2026 — https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/26/ai-datacentre-hyperscale-india-andhra-pradesh-village-google-confiscated-land
