In December 2021 a Telangana-based energy company called ZR Power Holdings signed a memorandum with Maharashtra for two data centres worth ₹1,200 crore. Three months later it revised the plan to ₹1,700 crore for a single 50 MW facility at Mahape, on 10 acres it was in the process of acquiring, to be operational by mid-2024. Both figures were reported and the money was described as the company’s largest foreign direct investment in the state. There is no land record, no construction and no commissioning. The target is now two and a half years past, and the same locality has since seen a 40 MW facility break ground under a different developer.
1At a glance
2The two revisions
| December 2021 | March 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Instrument | Memorandum with the Maharashtra government | Press announcement of a revised plan |
| Sites | Two — Navi Mumbai and Pune | One — Mahape |
| Investment | ₹1,200 crore (₹800 crore plus ₹400 crore) | Over ₹1,700 crore |
| Capacity | Not stated | 50 MW |
| Land | Not addressed | 10 acres, being acquired |
| Target | Not stated | Operational by mid-2024 |
| Jobs | 300 direct | Not restated |
The revision is the interesting part. A two-site, ₹1,200 crore programme became a one-site, ₹1,700 crore programme in a quarter, and the second city quietly disappeared from the story. Gridvik found no later reference to a ZR Power data centre in Pune.
₹1,700 crore for 50 MW is ₹34 crore per megawatt. The market rate for a built Indian data centre of any specification is ₹50 to ₹70 crore per megawatt, and has been for years.
Ten acres for 50 MW is also five megawatts an acre, which is a dense use of a small site. Either the 50 MW was a target for something other than a single delivered building, or the cost estimate was aspirational.
A number that is 40% below the market rate for the thing it describes is usually a number about something else.
3What a 50 MW plan of this kind costs
| Project | Announced | Capacity | Per MW |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZR Power, Mahape | ₹1,700 crore | 50 MW | ₹34 crore |
| Yotta D1, Greater Noida | ₹1,500 crore | 28.8 MW | ₹52 crore |
| CtrlS Chennai campus | ₹4,000 crore | 72 MW | ₹56 crore |
| L&T Sriperumbudur | ₹2,000 crore | 12 MW | ₹167 crore |
There is a legitimate explanation. An energy company proposing a data centre in 2022 may have been quoting the building and the electrical plant, with the fit-out and computing equipment to follow as tenants arrived. On that basis ₹34 crore per megawatt for a shell and a power connection is not absurd.
What it does mean is that the 50 MW figure and the ₹1,700 crore figure were never describing the same scope. That is normal in Indian project announcements and it is why Gridvik records both and refuses to derive capacity from either.
4Mahape moved on without it
This is why the record is worth publishing rather than deleting. Mahape is not a quiet place. It is the single largest data centre cluster in India, with sixteen facilities in the immediate area by one published mapping of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. Since this project stalled, the locality has done the following:
| Date | Development |
|---|---|
| January 2026 | L&T Vyoma held a groundbreaking ceremony for a 40 MW green, AI-ready data centre at Mahape, Navi Mumbai |
| May–June 2026 | The Maharashtra government stated it is acquiring about 3,000 acres for data centres and ancillary infrastructure across Taloja, Mahape and the proposed Third Mumbai area |
| June 2026 | State publications recorded 6 to 12 hours of scheduled power cuts in Navi Mumbai, followed by transformer trips attributed to excess load — a direct consequence of cluster density |
| October 2026 | Maharashtra reports data centre investment interest above $300 billion and a target of 5.7 GW of capacity |
The clear point: the demand side of this project’s thesis was correct. Mahape became exactly what an energy company betting on Navi Mumbai in 2021 would have wanted it to become. The project did not participate.
A 50 MW proposal at Mahape from a Middle-East-backed energy company, dated 2022, looks like a pipeline item in most market databases. It is not. It is four and a half years of silence.
Note also that L&T Vyoma’s 40 MW Mahape project is a different developer with no evidenced connection to this one. Gridvik found no document linking the two, no parcel transfer, and no capacity relationship. Anyone merging them is guessing.
5Timeline
- ZR Power Holdings signs a memorandum with the Government of Maharashtra for two data centres, at Navi Mumbai and Pune, worth over ₹1,200 crore and 300 direct jobs.
- The plan is revised upward to more than ₹1,700 crore for a single 50 MW facility at Mahape on a 10-acre plot the company is in the process of acquiring. Operational by mid-2024 is stated. The investment is described as the largest foreign direct investment by the company in Maharashtra.
- The stated operational target passes with no construction, commissioning or land record in the public domain.
- L&T Vyoma breaks ground on a 40 MW AI-ready data centre at Mahape — the same locality, a different developer.
- No construction, land record, power sanction, financing or capacity disclosure since March 2022. Four years and seven months after the announcement, two and a half years after the deadline.
- Any evidence that the land was acquired, that the project is alive, or that it has been dropped
6What we refuse to invent
7Limits and open questions
8Sources
This record was compiled entirely from publicly available sources, cross-checked against one another.
Economic Times·DatacenterDynamics·Free Press Journal·Projects Today·Larsen & Toubro Vyoma press release·Hindustan Times·Baxtel·State government reporting·Company registry records·Trade directories
Gridvik does not publish source URLs on record pages; citations are retained in the internal source register and are available on request.
A record of a 2022 proposal that produced no evidence for four and a half years, published so that it is not mistaken for a live pipeline item.
Corrections are free and published with a date.