Infrastructure Status’ for Data Centres in Govt Proposed Policy
The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology on Friday released the draft data centre policy which said that the government will work towards providing “infrastructure status” for the data centre sector, at par with other sectors like Railways, Roadways, and Power. The status will hel
Published -
Nov 7, 2020 5:49 AM
The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology on Friday released the draft data centre policy which said that the government will work towards providing “infrastructure status” for the data centre sector, at par with other sectors like Railways, Roadways, and Power. The status will help the sector avail long-term credit from domestic and international lenders at easier terms and will give a boost to the investments, the draft said. The policy also aims to simplify clearances for setting up data centres in the country. A chief component required for data centre infrastructure is an uninterrupted power supply and the policy has addressed this in its key focus areas. It said the policy would facilitate “provisioning of quality power for uninterrupted supply”, facilitate data centre parks to setup own power generation units, and encourage use of renewable energy. Data centres will also be declared as an Essential Service under “The Essential Services Maintenance Act, 1968 (ESMA)” which means that there would be a continuity of services even during times of calamities or crisis. The policy also proposed setting up of at least four ‘Data centre Economic Zones (DCEZ)’ in the country, as a Central Sector Scheme - DCEZ Scheme. The scheme will be implemented by inviting proposals from the States. The proposed DCEZs are intended to create an eco-system of hyperscale data centres, cloud service providers, IT companies, R&D units, and other allied industries. MeitY will also promote the global adoption of services from the data centre infrastructure available in India, through its various inter-governmental initiatives / MoUs, the draft policy said. The need for data centre infrastructure in the country already poses a potential opportunity for investments totalling $4.9 billion by 2025, which can be further increased if India were to become a location of choice for global players, according to the draft.
Tags : News/Views Infrastructure Data Centre Essential Services Govt Policy Economic Zones MoEIT