A round-table meeting on Saturday saw environmental and agricultural activists deliberate on the harmful impact of big data centres on public resources and environment.
Former civil servant and noted environmentalist E.A.S. Sarma said data centres put the water and power security of people at risk, and cost them higher due to subsidies offered to foreign companies. They are exempted from pollution control laws and labour laws, even while not providing much employment.
Mr. Sarma also spoke about lack of any law to regulate the data centres, and though there are provisions to protect the environment, they are not being enforced in the name of Ease of Doing Business.
“We are a crony capitalist country. Our entire democracy is contractors at lower level and corporates at higher level,” Mr. Sarma said. He expressed belief that in three to four years, the AI bubble will burst and data centres would end up as museums.
Retired scientist and environmentalist K. Babu Rao said each data centre is equipped with 100MW generators, which cause severe pollution equal to that of a thermal power plant. The heat generated by the centres would raise the temperatures of the entire area around them, but the State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority has granted permissions without any question about cooling methodologies. Mr.Babu Rao also sought to question the government about how the power requirements of the data centres would be met. He raised concerns about noise pollution too.
Activist Saraswathi Kavula said, Ranga Reddy district, which has the best climate in the whole state, is now heating up due to industrial proliferation. She said pharma city was only a front for the data centres, and that chief ministers going to the World Economic Forum always bring back orders from their ‘bosses’.
Environmentalist Sagar Dhara said data centres impact the environment on par with a steel plant or a thermal power plant, due to direct emissions and indirect impact due to need for higher power production. He proposed a people-led Environmental Impact Assessment to democratise the process.
Agricultural activist Kanneganti Ravi said the government’s developmental model is water based, and pointed out that all the political parties including BJP, BRS, Congress are alike in this aspect, and environment is not an issue for the left parties.
City based activist Lubna Sarwath said the social, environmental costs of data centres should weighed vis-a-vis the income disparities and democracy.
Deeksha Vanguru, a young activist from Visakhapatnam spoke about the Andhra Pradesh experience, and said governments are working in isolation, and they are not concerned about people.
Published – October 10, 2026 09:27 pm IST
