Green Visakha seeks cancellation of data centre permissions a day after rally

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription

Members of Green Visakha and others, many of them in black, with banners and placards during a rally against AI data centres in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday. | Photo Credit: BY ARRANGEMENT

Green Visakha, an environmental non-governmental organisation, on Thursday demanded cancellation of all permissions for AI data centres in Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli districts and a halt to construction at Tarluvada and Adavivaram. The demand came a day after it held a rally in the city on the first anniversary of the State government’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Google for an AI hub in Visakhapatnam.

The MoU, signed on October 14, 2025, provides for an investment of $15 billion, with AdaniConneX as a partner.

The organisation also sought a white paper on the agreements. It said the government had not followed the “Data Centre Evaluation Framework to Help States Plan for Sustainable Growth”, and that approvals given without an Environmental Impact Assessment and public hearing were not legally valid.

NITI Aayog’s Frontier Tech Hub released the framework on Wednesday. In a post on X, NITI Aayog described it as a decision-support tool that can be adapted to State priorities “without adding another layer of regulation”.

“On Wednesday, around 200 people, most of them in black, walked from the HP gas godown near the old dairy farm to the last bus stop at Ravindranagar, despite heavy rain,” Green Visakha treasurer G. Kantarao said. Participants observed the day as a “Black Day for Vizag”. Members of Climate Action, the Coalition for AI Regulation, the Pourachaitanya Vedika and student organisations joined, raising slogans such as “Stop Vizag Data Centres”.

The rally ended with a 10-minute street play, “Datasura Vadhanam”. “It covers how the data centre came as a devil, tried to divide people and influenced them, saying it will create jobs,” a protester Asha said. The play ends with people uniting after realising the cost to their land and water, and “Mother Nature” urging them to protect their resources.

N. Chandra Shekhar, secretary of the organisation, said the group would seek the stand of mayoral and corporator candidates on data centres in the upcoming local body elections.

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.