With over 658 million Internet users and Internet penetration of 47% in January 2022, India ranks as the 2nd largest online market in the World. The days are gone when our country witnessed faced concerns like lower availability of connections and bandwidth. With more prominent Data Centers (DC) providers like ESDS coming up with their multiple Data Centers in India, the industry is ready to address the growing digital needs in the coming years.
Impact of Pandemic on Indian Data Center Industry
The outbreak of the ongoing pandemic in the last 2-3 years has caused significant economic output loss due to its profound impact on manufacturing, construction, tourism, hospitality, and other sectors. Despite all these odds, the Data Center Industry in India proved its resilience in these challenging times and is now expected to grow faster than a ‘No Pandemic Scenario.’
How Government Initiatives Ease Data Center Setup Challenges
In November 2020, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, came up with an initial draft of the Data Center Policy. This policy will play a significant role in establishing data centers. The constant power supply will boost the Data Center infrastructure by facilitating Data Center parks to develop their power generation units through renewable sources of energy.
Pan-India Data Center Policy
The Draft Data Center Policy released in November 2020 focuses on the following-
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Ease of doing business by giving the infrastructure status to the Data Center sector, simplifying the clearances needed for setting up Data Centers in India, and Formulation of Data Center Incentivization Scheme (DCIS) for the promotion of Data Center parks
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Enabling a favorable ecosystem that ensures reliable power, Internet connectivity, and business continuity recognizes Data Centers as a different category under the National Building Code, owing to the requirement of different norms with respect to other commercial buildings & offices
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Data Centers to be declared as an “Essential Services” under the Essential Services Maintenance Act, 1968
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Setting up Data Center Economic Zones (DCEZ) in India as a central sector scheme and creating an ecosystem of hyperscale Data Centers, Cloud Service Providers, IT Companies, R&D units, and other allied industries
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Promoting indigenous technology development to encourage local manufacturing through joint ventures with international bodies, development of human resources by promoting research and capacity building