NASSCOM’s Recommendations for Data Centre Policy

Terms of use

Terms of Use

The use of this site and the content contained therein is governed by the Terms of Use. When you use this site you acknowledge that you have read the Terms of Use and that you accept and will be bound by the terms hereof and such terms as may be modified from time to time.

All text, graphics, audio, design and other works on the site are the copyrighted works of nasscom unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.
Content on the site is for personal use only and may be downloaded provided the material is kept intact and there is no violation of the copyrights, trademarks, and other proprietary rights. Any alteration of the material or use of the material contained in the site for any other purpose is a violation of the copyright of nasscom and / or its affiliates or associates or of its third-party information providers. This material cannot be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted or distributed in any way for non-personal use without obtaining the prior permission from nasscom.
The nasscom Members login is for the reference of only registered nasscom Member Companies.
nasscom reserves the right to modify the terms of use of any service without any liability. nasscom reserves the right to take all measures necessary to prevent access to any service or termination of service if the terms of use are not complied with or are contravened or there is any violation of copyright, trademark or other proprietary right.
From time to time nasscom may supplement these terms of use with additional terms pertaining to specific content (additional terms). Such additional terms are hereby incorporated by reference into these Terms of Use.

Disclaimer

The Company information provided on the nasscom web site is as per data collected by companies. nasscom is not liable on the authenticity of such data.
nasscom has exercised due diligence in checking the correctness and authenticity of the information contained in the site, but nasscom or any of its affiliates or associates or employees shall not be in any way responsible for any loss or damage that may arise to any person from any inadvertent error in the information contained in this site. The information from or through this site is provided "as is" and all warranties express or implied of any kind, regarding any matter pertaining to any service or channel, including without limitation the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement are disclaimed. nasscom and its affiliates and associates shall not be liable, at any time, for any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, computer virus, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorised access to, alteration of, or use of information contained on the site. No representations, warranties or guarantees whatsoever are made as to the accuracy, adequacy, reliability, completeness, suitability or applicability of the information to a particular situation.
nasscom or its affiliates or associates or its employees do not provide any judgments or warranty in respect of the authenticity or correctness of the content of other services or sites to which links are provided. A link to another service or site is not an endorsement of any products or services on such site or the site.
The content provided is for information purposes alone and does not substitute for specific advice whether investment, legal, taxation or otherwise. nasscom disclaims all liability for damages caused by use of content on the site.
All responsibility and liability for any damages caused by downloading of any data is disclaimed.
nasscom reserves the right to modify, suspend / cancel, or discontinue any or all sections, or service at any time without notice.

For any grievances under the Information Technology Act 2000, please get in touch with Grievance Officer, Mr. Anirban Mandal at data-query@nasscom.in.

New

See all

No notification found.

NASSCOM’s Recommendations for Data Centre Policy

Jayakumar Selvaraj

@Jayakumar

May 22, 2020

Public Policy

1785

Globally, data is being created at an unprecedented pace. Global Datasphere, which is the total amount of data created, stored and replicated is estimated to grow from 33 ZB in 2018, to 175 ZB by 2025.^[1] Given this trend, there is a need for building more Data Centres to store data, which in turn can be leveraged to provide a variety of cloud services.

In this background, the Finance Minister in the Budget speech this year proposed bringing out a policy to enable the private sector to build data centre parks in India. In response to this announcement, NASSCOM formed a 10 member Data Centre Policy Taskforce, comprising of senior industry leaders, to propose recommendations that can help promote the growth of Data Centres in India. The taskforce, after deliberations, arrived at specific recommendations, which were submitted to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on 19.05.2020.

A summary of the recommendations is provided below:

Establish pre-provisioned data centre parks with necessary infrastructure to host multiple data centres– Data Centres have unique infrastructural requirements, particularly with respect to power, land and connectivity. Enabling these factors for data centres requires Government intervention such as setting up dedicated data centre parks in the country.
Establish dual power grid networks to ensure uninterrupted supply of electricity. Data centres operate round the clock, and their customer contracts requires them to be functional upto 99.995% of time. Therefore, they need uninterrupted supply of power. Establishing dual power grid supply will ensure that atleast one power source is functional in case other faces a breakdown.

Allow data centres to consume renewable energy procured directly from power producers through the open access system, without any restrictions: Distribution companies (discoms) have placed various restrictions around usage of renewable energy (RE), even if procured directly from the power producer which stand in the way of companies meeting their commitments on usage of RE to the desired proportion. Therefore, we suggested removal of these restrictions.

Allow IP-I companies to share passive infrastructure directly with data centres in order to establish, maintain and operate an extended “private telegraph” (non-public telecommunications services) between two or more data centres in different locations. Currently, it is not permissible under Indian law for unlicensed entities such as cloud service providers (CSPs) to access dark fibre to construct their own private networks and connect their data centres (not for the purposes of providing public telecommunications services). CSPs, therefore, are required to procure all active network services/connectivity from telecommunications services providers (TSPs), which lead to operational challenges and increase overall cost of the business. We therefore suggested that IP1 service providers should be allowed to share this infrastructure directly with CSPs.

Enable data centre entities to import dual use network equipment for internal use and network infrastructure. Currently, data centres in India are prohibited from importing certain dual use equipment, even if they do not intend to use such equipment for telecom services. These restrictions lead to operational challenges and affect the quality and efficiency of data centres and cloud services. Therefore, we recommend that data centre entities should be allowed to import dual use network equipment for internal use and network infrastructure.

Implement a Dial Before You Dig Policy (DBYDP): Frequent digging of roads due to construction work and lack of coordination between multiple agencies involved in construction, poses a continuous threat of cable breaks or ‘’hits’’ to data centre operators. Implementing a Dial Before You Dig Policy (DBYPB) would allow authorities responsible for carrying out construction work to access information about the underlying network infrastructure before digging and minimize cable breaks.

Create common service ducts and utility corridors in all new cities as well as state/national highway road projects: Common service ducts and utility corridors along with efficient and cost-effective mechanisms for infrastructure companies (including data centre companies) to gain access to them will bring down maintenance and repair costs for the companies.

Recognise data centres as a separate category in the National Building Code: Currently, the building codes in India do not recognise “Data Centre” as a separate category. Therefore, the building norms of office buildings are applied to data centres. These norms are not suitable for the needs of data centres as they reduce the spatial efficiency and unnecessarily increase the operations cost.

Introduce deemed approval system for statutory clearances: Presently around 30 different approvals are required from central and state governments, before a data centre can start operations. To prevent delay in these clearances, a deemed approval system with specified timelines should be introduced both at the Central and State government levels.

Provide ‘infrastructure’ status to data centres: Infrastructure status to data centres will enable the industry to raise money from insurance companies, pension funds, and international lenders with a longer tenure and on easier terms. This would also give data centres access to cheaper foreign currency funding through the external commercial borrowing route.

Notify data centres as essential services under ‘The Essential Services Maintenance Act, 1968’: In times of calamity and other crisis, the status of essential services could provide the basis for State Governments to consider providing necessary support to data centres on a preferential basis.

Create a joint Centre-State implementation mechanism to implement the above recommendations: While some of the above recommendations are to be implemented by the State Governments, others fall under the ambit of the Central Government. Given that all recommendations are important to promote data centres, there is a need for creating a joint Centre-State implementation mechanism to ensure that these recommendations are implemented.

[1] Reinsel et al., ‘The Digitization of the World: From Edge to Core’, IDC White Paper, November 2018; available at: https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/our-story/trends/files/idc-seagate-dataage-whitepaper.pdf

Data Center policy Data centre

Disclaimer

That the contents of third-party articles/blogs published here on the website, and the interpretation of all information in the article/blogs such as data, maps, numbers, opinions etc. displayed in the article/blogs and views or the opinions expressed within the content are solely of the author's; and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of NASSCOM or its affiliates in any manner. NASSCOM does not take any liability w.r.t. content in any manner and will not be liable in any manner whatsoever for any kind of liability arising out of any act, error or omission. The contents of third-party article/blogs published, are provided solely as convenience; and the presence of these articles/blogs should not, under any circumstances, be considered as an endorsement of the contents by NASSCOM in any manner; and if you chose to access these articles/blogs , you do so at your own risk.

Download Attachment

Jayakumar Selvaraj

Jayakumar

Call for Inputs: SEBI's consul...

Swapnil