Maharashtra Drafts Data Centre Policy After Balkum Residents Protest AWS Project
Maharashtra is formulating a dedicated Data Centre Policy to regulate digital infrastructure facilities across the state, prompted by intense local protests in Thane's Balkum neighbourhood against an upcoming Amazon Web Services project. The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board has partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay to draft the comprehensive Standard Operating Procedures, which are expected to be finalised within a few months.
The regulatory initiative emerged directly from opposition raised by residents in Balkum, who voiced serious concerns over an upcoming Amazon Web Services data centre. The local community objected to the facility due to potential noise pollution, intense heat generation, and heavy diversion of municipal resources in the residential vicinity.
Maharashtra Pollution Control Board Chairman Siddhesh Kadam stated that the upcoming policy aims to address these urban ecological challenges directly by mandating sustainable operational benchmarks and strict zoning rules. He explained that while the state aims to attract new investments, incoming projects cannot be permitted at the behest of environmental concerns.
Under the planned standard operating procedures, the state will introduce mandatory buffer zones separating industrial data centres from residential clusters. Future facilities will also be encouraged to establish operations away from densely populated urban areas to reduce strain on surrounding communities.
The framework also tackles resource consumption by setting strict rules for cooling systems. To address the issue of massive water use required for cooling servers, the policy will mandate that data centres use treated and recycled wastewater rather than drawing from fresh municipal supplies.
To counter noise complaints raised by residents like those in Balkum, the policy is set to require advanced acoustic barriers designed to suppress low-frequency hums produced by cooling machinery and backup generators. The collaboration between the pollution board and IIT Bombay is also developing measures to monitor localised ambient heat generation and establish strict rules for overall energy consumption.
Kadam noted that the state has studied the operational experiences of Western and developed nations where data centres are already established. The resulting guidelines will define standard operating procedures and determine permissible locations for all future data centres across Maharashtra.
