The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has published the Draft Centre Policy, 2020 which purports to transform India into a global data centre hub and reduce the hurdles to set up a data centre in the country. The policy seeks to create a new industry body to liaise between the data centre industry and the government, the Data Centre Industry Council (DCIC), to be initiated by MEITY.
Key Highlights from the policy:
The policy shall promote domestic manufacturing, including non-IT as well as IT components, to increase domestic value addition and reduce dependence on imported equipment for Data Centres.
It shall promote capacity building in the sector through association with various skilling/human resource development programs.
Facilitate access to uninterrupted and cost-effective power, which forms one of the most critical aspects of operating the Data Centre.
Central and State Governments shall formulate their respective schemes and guidelines detailing out fiscal and non-fiscal incentives in this sector to enable further expansion of Data Centres in the country.
MeitY to promote the global adoption of services from state-of-the-art Data Centre infrastructure available in India, through various inter-governmental initiatives / MoUs.
It shall facilitate standardization in the development of Data Centres.
