Reliance begins construction of data centre at Silicon Valley

Kolkata: The Bhoomi Puja to mark the beginning of construction work for the data centre by Reliance at their earmarked land under the Bengal Silicon Valley project in New Town, was performed on Sunday.

A senior official of the company said that the company is set to build two international data centres at the venue in collaboration with Microsoft. A technology centre will also come up in the same place.

"We will cater to the requirement of all data centres based in eastern India, not only those belonging to us but of other companies' too," the official added. Reliance Jio has 40 acres of land in the Bengal Silicon Valley.

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd who attended the Bengal Global Business Summit in February 2019, had thanked the Bengal government for the land allotted to them at Bengal Silicon Valley hub and had also assured Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — who was sharing the dais with him — that Reliance will implement the project speedily and make it as good as the ones in the Silicon Valley.

A senior official of the state Information Technology department maintained that the data centre is expected to create huge employment opportunities which is the focus of the Mamata Banerjee government.

Apart from Reliance Jio, TCS has taken 20 acres while RP Sanjiv Goenka Group's First Source has taken 5 acres of land in the proposed hub. Genpact has also applied for 20 acres of land. The project was launched by the Chief Minister in August 2018, in Action Area II in New Town, to attract investments in the IT sector and to build a world-class ecosystem for cutting edge technologies and innovation.

Presently out of a total of 200 acres, 169 acres of allotable land (excluding road and commercial space) at the Bengal Silicon Valley hub is available. Companies like Capgemini, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant and the Indian Statistical Institute have also applied for land to set up facilities there.

It may be mentioned that the state government is in conversation with companies to identify a joint-venture route to build co-living along with co-working places close to the Silicon Valley project. "TCS employs more than 38,000 people here and people come from all over India. But where do they stay? So we want to provide affordable shared housing facilities to them," said a senior official of the state IT department.

It may be mentioned that IT major Wipro had announced to build a second campus in Kolkata, proposing to invest Rs 500 crore that will create 10,000 jobs.