EOI for data centre project on islands withdrawn

Why in the News

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration has withdrawn an Expression of Interest seeking feasibility proposals for a private sector-led green artificial intelligence data centre on the islands, days after publishing it. The withdrawal follows reports that the Nicobarese population on Great Nicobar Island had not been informed of any plan to set up a data centre in the sea areas around the island.

What is an Expression of Interest in a public project?

1. About: An Expression of Interest is a pre-tender notice through which a government body invites interested parties to indicate willingness and capability to undertake a project, before a formal tender is issued.
2. Purpose: It is used to test market interest and technical feasibility for a project whose scope, cost or technology is not yet fixed, so the responses shape the later tender document.
3. Legal effect: It creates no contractual obligation and can be withdrawn or modified by the issuing authority at any stage before award.

What is a green artificial intelligence data centre?

1. About: A data centre is a facility housing servers and networking equipment, and an artificial intelligence data centre is optimised for the high power and cooling demands of large model training and inference.
2. Why green: The green label refers to powering the facility with renewable energy and using low-water or seawater-based cooling, since artificial intelligence workloads consume far more electricity and cooling water than conventional server hosting.

Who are the Nicobarese?

1. About: The Nicobarese are the largest indigenous community of the Nicobar group of islands, a Scheduled Tribe living in village-based settlements across the Nicobar archipelago including Great Nicobar.
2. Why they matter here: Their traditional lands and coastal commons fall within the footprint of island infrastructure projects, so their prior information and consent is the legal and administrative test for any such proposal.

Why has the withdrawal drawn attention to consultation?

1. The sequence: The Expression of Interest was published on 10 August, and a notice issued days later withdrew it with immediate effect due to administrative reasons.
2. Location of the proposal: The data centre was proposed for the sea areas around Great Nicobar Island, which places it directly in the coastal zone the resident community depends on.
3. The information gap: The local Nicobarese population on Great Nicobar Island had not been informed of any plan to set up a data centre in those waters.
4. The wider protest: Local people are already protesting against the government’s proposed Rs 91,000-crore mega-infrastructure project on the same island.
5. What the reason given does not settle: The notice cites administrative reasons without specifying whether the withdrawal responds to the consultation failure, the technical feasibility or the wider protest.

What is at stake in the Great Nicobar mega project?

1. Scale: The proposed mega-infrastructure project on Great Nicobar Island carries an estimated cost of Rs 91,000 crore.
2. Components: The Great Nicobar Island Project comprises a transhipment port at Galathea Bay, an international airport, a power plant and a greenfield township.
3. Strategic rationale: The transhipment port is intended to rival Colombo and Singapore for container transhipment, capturing traffic that currently bypasses Indian ports.
4. Ecological setting: Great Nicobar hosts the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve, along with the Galathea Bay leatherback turtle nesting site and the Campbell Bay and Galathea National Parks.
5. Community setting: The island is home to the Nicobarese and to the Shompen, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group living in the interior forests.
6. The consultation question: The data centre withdrawal repeats the question already raised about the mega project, which is whether affected communities are informed before proposals enter the public domain.

Challenges to Island Infrastructure Development

1. Prior informed consent: Project proposals reach the public domain before the resident community is told, which converts consultation into a post-facto formality. Eg. The Nicobarese on Great Nicobar were not informed of the data centre proposal in the waters around their island.
2. Ecological irreversibility: Island ecosystems are small, endemic and cannot absorb clearance at the scale mainland projects assume. Eg. The Great Nicobar project involves diversion of a large tract of tropical forest and construction at the Galathea Bay leatherback turtle nesting beach.
3. Seismic and tsunami exposure: The islands sit on an active subduction zone, so heavy coastal infrastructure carries a hazard the mainland does not face. Eg. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated the Nicobar group and permanently submerged parts of the coastline near Indira Point.
4. Water and power for data infrastructure: Artificial intelligence data centres demand continuous power and cooling that island grids cannot supply without new generation. Eg. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands depend substantially on diesel generation and an undersea optical fibre link commissioned in 2020.
5. Rehabilitation of tribal populations: Displacement from customary land cannot be compensated in cash terms for communities whose livelihood is tied to a specific coastal ecology. Eg. Nicobarese families displaced by the 2004 tsunami were resettled in intermediate shelters, and return to original villages remained incomplete for years.
6. Regulatory clearance layering: Island projects require forest, coastal zone, wildlife and tribal clearances from separate authorities, which invites piecemeal appraisal of a single project. Eg. The Great Nicobar project’s clearances have been challenged before the National Green Tribunal and reviewed by a high-powered committee.
7. Strategic and civilian conflict: The islands host India’s only tri-service command, so security requirements limit civilian access and complicate transparent public consultation. Eg. Access to several Nicobar islands remains restricted under tribal reserve and defence notifications.

“[2019] Consider the following statements about Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) in India:

1. PVTGs reside in 18 States and one Union Territory.

2. A stagnant or declining population is one of the criteria for determining PVTG status.

3. There are 95 PVTGs officially notified in the country so far.

4. Irular and Konda Reddi tribes are included in the list of PVTGs.

Which of the statements given above are correct?

(a) 1, 2 and 3

(b) 2, 3 and 4

(c) 1, 2 and 4

(d) 1, 3 and 4