‘The Data Center Has Taken Everything: Our Lands, Future, Happiness’
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Behanbox Talkies
‘The Data Center Has Taken Everything: Our Lands, Future, Happiness’
In this instalment of BehanBox Talkies, two Dalit women from Andhra Pradesh speak about their fight for their rights even as multinational tech-giants power a global AI boom
Anjali D,
Bhaskar Basava
Anjali D -->
August 20, 2026
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Illustration by Urvi Sawant
Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, is rapidly transforming into one of India’s largest AI Data Center hubs, with Google investing $15 billion (Rs 1.5 lakh crore) in a 2.5-GW AI data centre project in the region in partnership with Adani and Airtel. That is more than the country’s entire installed data centre capacity of 1.5 GW as of 2025. Welcoming the move with open arms, the Andhra Pradesh government, led by the TDP–JSP–BJP coalition under Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu, has committed incentives over Rs 22,000 crore for the project, including the allotment of around 600 acres of land across three sites — 266 acres at Tarluvada, 160 acres at Adavivaram-Mudasarlova, and 174 acres at Rambilli.<br>In Tarluvada, a village nestled among the hills of the Eastern Ghats, work on the 1 GW centre has progressed rapidly. Categorised as a (Category B2, 8(a)), project (building and construction) and exempted from both public hearings and a detailed Environmental Impact Assessment report, the project was granted environmental clearance within nine days. Ten days after that, CM Naidu laid the foundation stone.<br>Months on, Dalit families from Tarluvada who resisted against the project and coercive land acquisition continue to live through its aftermath, struggling to comprehend a future shrouded in uncertainty, yet-to-be-fulfilled promises, and fear for their own survival. Despite heavy police repression and intimidation, Pyla Kondamma and Relli Ramakrishna , two Dalit women from Tarluvada, have been vocal opponents of the project since the start. They spoke to us about how the state deceived them, what they have lost, why they continue to fight, and their uncertain future.<br>Kondamma, whose name means ‘mother of the hill’, was one of the first people in the village to learn about the upcoming data center. Despite her own fears, she along with others raised awareness in the village about the need to demand fair compensation and land. Relli Ramakrishna, too, has lived in the village for decades, from the time she planted her first sapling to the day the data centre sprang up in its place.<br>Edited excerpts of the interview:
Can you tell us a little about yourself and your life in Tarluvada?<br>Pyla Kondamma: I was born, brought up, and married here in Tarluvada. I have spent my entire life in this village. I also served as the sarpanch for five years in the early 2000s. My family has resided in this village for nearly 60 years – both my mother-in-law’s family and my own mother’s family are rooted here. Our grandparents and parents would go up that hill you see right there, Chukka Konda (star hill), to cut wood and make charcoal for a living. Later, they started farming on the slopes of the hill, clearing the shrubs and tilling the land. I was a small child back then, but I remember those days vividly. My elders endured all those hardships so that we could have a better life.
Pyla Kondamma talks about the ongoing struggle to protect her home and village | Anjali D
Over the years, that land became the centre of our lives. And, until recently, we had two acres of that land planted with cashew and mango trees. Every summer, we would harvest both crops, while growing vegetables and leafy greens as intercrops between the trees. We would go there daily, gather what we’d grown, and eat straight from our own land. Everything, every single thing, we grew ourselves. We earned roughly Rs 80,000 per acre annually from agriculture, after covering all expenses. Apart from cultivating our own land, we also took up wage work whenever we could.<br>The land and the hill were also where we spent much of our time as a family. In the evenings, after working in our fields, we would trek up into the hills and enjoy the cool, pleasant breeze. We would spend some time there before walking back home. Life felt good. But ever since our land was taken for the data centre and construction began, we have stopped going to our fields altogether. It feels like, along with the land, we have lost those happy memories too.<br>It is rare for Dalit families to own land in Indian villages. Did your family always own this land?<br>Relli Ramakrishna: No, we had no inherited land. Before the 1970s, my husband, Relli Appanna, would climb the hill, burn charcoal, and carry it down to sell; that was how we survived. In the...