MUMBAI, June 14 -- The state government is pushing hard to become the country's data centre capital, revising its Integrated Data Centre Park Policy to vastly expand its scope and offer key players greater incentives. But these economic ambitions will come at a price. Among the amendments to the 2024 policy, made earlier this week, is a massive dilution in the green power requirements for data centres, large complexes that house powerful computer systems used to train AI models. The government has reduced the mandatory green power requirement for core data centre operations from 100% to 51% even as there is a pushback against data centres across the world for the massive amounts of electricity and water they consume. Nevertheless, the state's overarching economic objective is to become a $5-trillion economy by 2047, with a significant share of GDP growth expected to come from digital infrastructure. Its revised policy has increased the number of projects eligible for incentives to 20 from the earlier cap of three. It has also widened the policy's geographic scope, from the MMR to the entire state. Among the incentives offered is concessional electricity, at Rs.1 per unit for 10 years for projects investing Rs.30,000 crore, and for 20 years for projects investing Rs.60,000 crore or more. It has also scrapped the condition requiring developers to reserve 2% of the total land area for incubation centres. Further, the government will consider the cumulative investment made by landowners, developers and other stakeholders while extending incentives. Earlier, only the developer's investment was considered for availing benefits. The new policy also extends an industrial incentive grant equivalent to 75% of the total capital investment to integrated green data centre parks investing Rs.60,000 crore or more. Such projects will additionally be eligible for a 4% interest subsidy on term loans for 10 years, capped at Rs.25 crore annually. "The earlier framework, introduced in October 2024, would not have been sufficient to achieve Maharashtra's target of developing 30-40 gigawatts (GW) of green energy-based data centre capacity by 2047 under the 'Developed Maharashtra 2047' vision," according to a government resolution (GR) issued this week. P Anbalagan, principal secretary, state industries department, said the scope of the government's data centre policy and the incentive framework now covers the entire data centre ecosystem. He said the move was prompted by the overwhelming response from investors and the scale of proposed investments. "We realised that with the potential demand for 30-40 gigawatts of data centre capacity, restricting incentives to just three projects would not be practical. Therefore, the limit has been increased to 20 projects." Unlike policies in other states, which focus either on data centre park developers or on hyperscale operators, Maharashtra's revised framework seeks to incentivise the entire value chain, he explained. "This includes land developers, who create infrastructure such as water, power and connectivity; build-to-suit operators; hyperscalers as well as suppliers of cooling systems and other critical equipment," said Anbalagan. On almost halving the green requirement for data centres, he said, "Given the current limitations in battery storage and pumped-storage infrastructure, supplying 100% renewable power round the clock is not feasible. International clients also generally require traceable renewable energy rather than absolute 100% green power. Therefore, a threshold of 51% traceable green energy has been prescribed," he said. Anbalagan said Maharashtra has signed investment commitments worth nearly $100 billion linked to approximately 8 GW of data-centre capacity. The long-term potential is estimated at 30-40 GW, which could trigger substantial investments in renewable energy, transmission infrastructure and allied manufacturing sectors. The amended policy is expected to benefit data centre projects being developed by players such as Adani Infra (investment of Rs.1.20 lakh crore, among others. HT had reported on June 6 that Maharashtra has attracted investments worth Rs.16.69 lakh crore across 44 data centre projects with a combined capacity of 23,800 MW. Experts have also raised concerns over the massive water and power consumption by data centres, especially in the fast-expanding MMR, where they could strain these resources. However, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has justified the revisions in the policy, saying they were necessary to achieve the state's targets for 2047. "Maharashtra is undertaking one of the largest energy expansion programmes in the country, with the addition of renewable energy capacity and the strengthening of transmission infrastructure. We will reach 93 GW of installed capacity by 2030, with renewable energy accounting for 52% of the mix, up from the current 57 GW capacity, of which 21% is renewable," said Fadnavis on Thursday. He said the government is encouraging the use of treated wastewater, recycling systems and advanced cooling technologies that reduce freshwater consumption....