Thane: NCP (SP) on Friday accused Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) of pushing through a proposed 54-acre data centre project of a tech giant in Balkum without transparency, alleging that citizens and elected representatives were kept in the dark about a project that could strain the city’s already stretched water resources and pose potential health and environmental risks to residents living the vicinity of the site.Data centres are known to be water-guzzlers since every prompt into an AI chatbot generates heat and the systems require continuous cooling.NCP (SP) MLA Jitendra Awhad questioned govt’s decision to locate the facility in a densely populated residential area, noting that similar projects have faced opposition in several countries, including the US and Europe. “A data centre is being set up in Balkum on land purchased from a developer at Rs 1,830 crore. The site is surrounded by eight housing complexes, five schools and three hospitals within a 1km radius. Globally, data centres are typically located away from residential zones. We have no objection if such a project is shifted to the sparsely populated Thane rural area,” he said.Under Maharashtra IT-ITeS policy 2023, data centres are permitted to operate in any zone, including residential, green and no-development.TMC has not shared details of the proposed project and its impact, but according to a report released earlier this year by a Delhi-based public policy think tank, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a 100MW hyperscale data centre can consume around 20 lakh litres of water per day for cooling. It also estimated that India’s data centres consumed around 150 billion litres of water in 2024-2025 and could require around 358 billion litres annually by 2030. According to a Washington-based environmental policy think tank, Environmental and Energy Study Institute, residents living near such facilities have reported health concerns linked to prolonged exposure to noise generated through such centres.“Globally, concerns are being raised over the enormous water and power consumption, heat generation, noise pollution and environmental footprint of data centre,” said Awhad. He questioned the absence of an environmental impact assessment report in the public domainAnti-noise activist Dr Mahesh Bedekar said, “The city’s capacity to absorb the additional burden on infrastructure must be examined, and it must be ensured that noise levels remain within permissible limits.”Thane district NCP president Manoj Pradhan, who also protested the lack of any information from the civic administration, warned of a protest against the project. He said the issue will be raised at the municipal general body meeting next week.Despite repeated attempts, there was no response from Thane municipal commissioner Saurabh Rao.
