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Former Andhra Pradesh Minister and YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) leader Gudivada Amarnath raised critical questions regarding the infrastructure, resource allocation, and environmental safeguards surrounding the proposed hyper-scale data centre projects in Visakhapatnam.

Speaking to the reporters, Amarnath highlighted growing concerns expressed by local residents and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) following the announcement made by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for the establishment of data centres in the State.

"Yesterday, Chandrababu Naidu Garu, in his meeting in Visakhapatnam, announced some projects regarding data centres. See, there is a lot of discussion happening on data centres that are being established in Visakhapatnam. There are a lot of NGOs speaking on that. Initially, when there was an announcement on a Google Data Centre being set up in Visakhapatnam, we had some questions raised to the government regarding the allotment of water to the companies, giving power to the company, as well as the environmental issues that are going to come up because of setting up data centres in this area," he said.

Concerns Over Power and Grid Capacity

Questioning the State government on the establishment of data centres, Amarnath noted that a single large-scale data centre can consume electricity equivalent to the entire hourly power demand of Visakhapatnam city. He urged the government to detail plans for expanding grid transmission capacity, upgrading supply lines, and building necessary support systems to ensure local residents do not face power instability.

"When you are setting up or giving permissions to these companies, what is the roadmap that you have taken on supplying water to these data centres that are coming up? And how do you restore the grid through which the power is being supplied to these data centres? Because the grid capacity today is sufficient for the needs of the people who are living in this area. When you are setting up 1 GW or 2 GW data centres in these areas, the capacity of the grid should be increased, the supply lines should be increased, and the support system should be increased," he said.

Questions on Water Supply and Environmental Impact

He further asked how the administration plans to supply the necessary water volumes without compromising the drinking and agricultural needs of the region.

"The environmental issues that are being caused by the data centres, which are being set up in different parts of the country, what are the environmental measures that you are going to take when the data centres are being set up?" he questioned. (ANI)