Mumbai, Oct 4 (IANS) The Maharashtra Cabinet during a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Friday gave approval for the establishment of Green Integrated Data Centre Parks in the state which is expected to attract investment worth Rs 1.60 lakh crore.

The Chief Minister's Office (CMO) in a release said: "Maharashtra is the first state in the country to come up with a special policy for green integrated data centre parks which will attract multinational and global companies operating in the data center sector. As a result, a substantial investment of $20 billion (Rs 1.60 lakh crore) will come to the state which help Maharashtra to further consolidate its top position in the data center sector."

The government will provide a slew of incentives and after its completion, the government will get permanent revenue from direct and indirect taxes and it will also earn non-tax revenue.

The Green Integrated Data Center Park being an emerging project will provide jobs to about 500 highly skilled persons and the hi tech based employment will be provided to nearly 3,000 people indirectly.

"With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the demand for data storage and processing is increasing manifold. But at the same time, global warming is a major concern due to excessive energy consumption by data centers. India is taking steps to become a zero carbon footprint country by 2070. Therefore, industries based on green technology will be important considering the growing demand for green technology industries in future. In line with this concept, the Green Integrated Data Centre Parks are being proposed in the state which will attract multinational companies in the data center sector and help create an enabling ecosystem in India as well," the CMO release read.

The Cabinet also approved the partial amendment to the Information Technology and Information Technology Support Services Policy, 2023, to sanction additional incentives for Green Integrated Data Center Parks in the State 2023 for setting up green integrated data centre parks. Accordingly, the cabinet gave nod for payment of the additional incentives as well as regular incentives.

Three green integrated Data Centre parks with at least 500 MW capacity will be eligible for getting incentives. These three projects will have a fixed capital investment worth Rs 30,000 crore in 10 year period. For these projects, the incentive period is fixed at 20 years.

The eligible new green integrated data center parks will be given incentives after meeting fixed capital investment criteria with co-location investment of at least Rs 10,000 crore. The incentive scheme will be automatically terminated after the establishment of three green green integrated data center projects.