Google is now Andhra Pradesh’s first private electricity company. You’ll be paying for that

Andhra Pradesh wants to be India's data centre capital. Google, Meta, and Reliance have all been promised space in Vizag. To make it work, the state did something it has never done before — handed Google its own electricity licence, letting it bypass the state grid entirely.

The logic is straightforward. The consequences are not. When large consumers leave the grid, electricity gets more expensive for everyone else. Farmers lose subsidies. Factories pay more. Coal plants stay open longer than planned.

And somewhere in Vizag, a data centre is being built 120 metres from the city's drinking water reservoir.

Host Rachel Varghese and reporter Mrunmayee Kulkarni discuss.

Read Mrunmayee's story on the electric grid load here.

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