U.P. govt’s power boost to data centre parks
Uttar Pradesh cabinet approved dual-grid power for data centers, customized incentives for mega industrial units, and funding for rural water schemes to boost investment and self-reliance.
The Uttar Pradesh cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal to allow supply by two grids to ensure uninterrupted electricity to data centre parks and give customised package of incentives to ultra mega category industrial units.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath presided over the meeting of state cabinet that decided that the IT and electronics department will bear the cost of one of the two grids (whichever costs less) to boost the investment in the data centre parks.
The respective data centre park will bear the burden of the second grid under the new provisions. Briefing media persons, minister for finance and parliamentary affairs Suresh Khanna said the state’s data centre policy provided for double grid power supply to first three data centre parks.
As the state government achieved targets of the 2021 data centre policy five years ahead of the schedule, it carried out first amendment to the policy on 7 November 2022 and the amended policy provided for double grid power network facility to first eight data centre parks.
The target was to set up eight ultramodern data centres with an investment of ₹30,000 crore. An official press release said the setting up of the data centre parks in the state will make the state and the country self-reliant in the field of data storage, bring about improvement in the data centre ecosystem and boost the GDP.
The state cabinet has approved the recommendations of high-level committee headed by chief secretary Manoj Kumar Singh to provide customised package of incentives to ultra mega category industrial units (with investment of over ₹3,000 crore) on case-to-case basis.
The committee submitted its recommendations on July 4, 2024. Minister for industry Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi said the state cabinet’s nod to the customised package to the industry would benefit Avaada Electro Private Limited which has proposed an investment of ₹11,399 crore.
He said the projects need 150 acre land out of which 50 acre land was available in Greater Noida (Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad) while 100 acre was available in Hathras in west UP. He said the Avaada would set up 5 giga water solar power plant and the project to be implemented in two stages would create 4500 jobs.
The state cabinet approved a new policy for running and maintenance of piped water supply scheme in rural areas providing for funding by the state budget and the Uttar Pradesh State Finance Commission for maintenance and operation of the scheme.
Khanna said the state government would incur a burden of ₹4,485 crore on running and maintenance of the scheme. This includes ₹1,553 crore for payment of power supply cost.
Uttar Pradesh minister for Jal Shakti Swatantra Dev Singh said a considerable sum to be spent on power supply would be saved by installation of solar power projects.