Roundtable discusses data center damage
At a roundtable meeting on Saturday, environmental and agricultural activists addressed the damaging impact of large data centers on public resources and the environment.
Former civil servant and prominent environmentalist EAS Sarma said data centers threaten people’s water and energy security and cost them more due to subsidies offered to foreign companies. They are exempt from pollution control and labor laws, although they do not provide many jobs.
Mr. Sarma also spoke about how there is no law to regulate data centers and while there are environmental protection measures in place, they are not enforced in the name of ease of doing business.
“We are a crony capitalist country. Our entire democracy is contractors at the lower level and corporations at the upper level,” Sarma said. He expressed his belief that in three to four years the AI bubble will burst and data centers will end up as museums.
Retired scientist and environmentalist K. Babu Rao said that each data center is equipped with 100MW generators, which cause serious pollution on par with a thermal power plant. The heat generated by the centers would raise the temperatures of the entire area around them, but the State Environmental Assessment Office granted the permit without any questions about the cooling methods. Mr. Babu Rao also sought to ask the government how the power requirements of the data centers will be met. He also expressed concern about noise pollution.
Activist Saraswathi Kavula said Ranga Reddy district, which has the best climate in the entire state, is now heating up due to industrial proliferation. She said that the pharmaceutical city is only a front for data centers and that chief ministers coming to the World Economic Forum always bring orders from their “bosses”.
Environmentalist Sagar Dhara said that data centers affect the environment in the same way as a steel plant or a thermal power plant, due to direct emissions and an indirect impact due to the need for higher energy production. He proposed a people-led environmental impact assessment to democratize the process.
Agriculture activist Kanneganti Ravi said that the government’s development model is based on water and pointed out that all political parties including BJP, BRS, Congress are similar in this regard and environment is not an issue for Left parties.
Urban activist Lubna Sarwath said the social and environmental costs of data centers should be weighed against income inequality and democracy.
Deeksha Vanguru, a young activist from Visakhapatnam, spoke about the experience of Andhra Pradesh and said that governments work in isolation and do not care about the people.
Published – 10 Oct 2026 21:27 IST