Why workers at an Adani power plant who gave up land for jobs went on a hunger strike

An Adani power project that exports electricity to Bangladesh has faced heat from the new regime in Dhaka over the price of power. While the standoff between the company and Dhaka has made news, a recent protest in Godda, Jharkhand, where the company has built its thermal plant, has largely gone unnoticed. Scroll travelled to Godda to report this two-part series.

On March 30, several workers at Adani Power’s thermal power plant in Godda, Jharkhand, received an email that left them enraged. The email contained a contract that stated that the workers were being hired by a company named Riddhi Corporate Services, for their client Adani Power. Though the contract bore the date on which they received the message, it stated that their “date of joining” was almost two years earlier, May 5, 2023.

Four days later, around 180 employees who had been shifted to the second company decided to protest this move. The workers constructed a small tent next to the main gate of the power plant and sat there on a hunger strike.

The workers were angry because many had given up their land to the company for the construction of the power plant. While they had received compensation for their land, under the...

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