Chennai: The post-Covid situation was like the Y2K moment for the information and technology (IT) sector, industry and startups to use the opportunity with the national data centre and cloud policy, said Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said Friday.
Chandrasekhar held a consultation meet with the various stakeholders on the proposed centre and policy here.
Briefing reporters later, he said the interaction went on for nearly four-and-a-half hours, and was meaningful.
“Representatives of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana attended the meet. Tamil Nadu is very keen to attract investments in data centres and it is like the Y2K moment (for the industry a huge opportunity can be seized), he said.
Post-Y2K, India became one of the destinations in the information technology space for enterprises with quality talent and competitiveness.
Chandrasekhar said the aforesaid States were becoming hubs of data centres and for electronics-manufacturing.
According to Ministry officials, the country has around 499 MW of installed power capacity for data centres and the growth in the projected data centre capacity was expected to reach 2,000 MW by 2027.
Chandrasekhar said the State governments need to be pro-active in attracting investments in the data centre and cloud space. “This National Data Centre and Cloud Policy aims to accelerate the growth of data centres and cloud services in the country. It encourages the usage of indigenous platforms in the data centre and cloud operations,” he said.
On cyber security, he said about 80 crore citizens were using internet and this would grow to 1.2 billion in the next few years.
“There will be more number of Indian startups in the cloud space,” he said, adding that the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Tamil Nadu, would engage in the role of enabling entrepreneurs set up data centres.
“To ensure this, States and the Union Territories shall publish the list of approvals, clearances required for operationalisation of data centres in advance”, the policy said.
The policy enables data centres to be recognised as a separate category under the National Building Code and the Ministry shall coordinate with department of telecommunications to facilitate robust and cost-effective connectivity to the centres.
PTI