MeitY jumpstarts talks on data centre policy to boost capacity
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The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) has restarted consultations on the draft national data centre policy , according to officials, as the government looks to sharpen its approach to wooing investments in such facilities in the country.The policy, which aims to encourage setting up of data centres through single-window permissions, streamlining approvals, promoting domestic manufacturing and providing incentives, was announced in 2020 but never implemented.Last week, a limited stakeholder consultation held by the ministry in the national capital was attended by industry representatives, who have been asked to submit recommendations by this week, the officials said."The existing policy was comprehensive. We have sought feedback on how to update it in line with how the sector has changed over the past five years," said one of the officials cited earlier.The rapid expansion of the sector and AI-led growth have led to the need for having such facilities across the country, centrally planning for rising power consumption and coordinating with state governments, he said.Many of the features of the draft policy, such as single-window clearances, four dedicated Data Centre Economic Zones (DCEZs), and targeted incentives, have been discussed in recent meetings, said industry executives who participated at the last meeting.It aimed to make India a favorable destination for data centres by streamlining approvals, promoting domestic manufacturing and providing incentives. The government has partially adopted one of its key suggestions—granting infrastructure status to data centres with capacity of 5 MW or higher."The government is keen on the DCEZs since it would help distribute the uneven spread of data centres, especially taking advantage of the many smaller edge data centres that are set to come up in interior locations," a person aware of the matter told ET. "It has given the example of India's first AI-based data centre park opening in Chhattisgarh's Naya Raipur in May."The DCEZ was envisioned to create an ecosystem of hyperscalers , cloud service providers, IT companies, R&D units and other allied industries at select locations."Considering that at least 10 states have now brought in data centre policies, the government plans to adopt some of the elements of the various state data centre policies based on industry feedback," said an executive with a Mumbai-based data centre operator. Although Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal have rolled out the red carpet for data centres, nearly 80% of the total capacity is still in the large metros—Mumbai (41%), Chennai (23%) and Delhi NCR (14%), according to real estate services firm Colliers India.
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