Agartala, Jan 29 : Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha on Thursday said the state is poised to become a hub of data storage in the northeast region with growing academic and economic activities.
He said the state has three such facilities, but they fail to meet the growing demand for data storage.
The CM laid the foundation stone for Airtel’s data centre worth Rs 200 crore with 5 megawatt storage capacity at Chandmari in West Tripura district and termed the initiative as a timely intervention.
The move will develop an ecosystem for setting up IT and IT-enabled industries in the state, he said.
“Tripura has several advantages to become a hub of the data storage industry with the state receiving substantial investment proposals and speedy business reforms,” he said.
The three existing data centres’ storage capacity stands at 1800 terabytes, which often fails to meet the growing demand, he said.
Mumbai leads the country’s data storage capacity with 50 per cent of the total storage facility, the chief minister said.
Saha said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already set a target of increasing the country’s data storage capacity from 1.5 gigabytes to 8 gigabytes by 2030 as part of the ‘Viksit Bharat’ mission.
“At present, the country produces 20 per cent of global data, but storage facilities account for only 3 per cent of the world’s data storage capacity. The target to enhance data storage facility is a critical component for capacity building for realising ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047,” he said.
Saha added that the upcoming data centre will be beneficial for Tripura’s IT professionals who are currently working in the major cities of the country.
“Many IT professionals from Tripura are working in big cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and even abroad. Now, they can get jobs in their home city,” he said.
Asserting that Tripura is the third fully-literate state after Goa and Mizoram in the country, he said the state produces a large pool of educated youth from various institutions every year.
At present, the northeastern state has seven universities, six medical and engineering colleges, and institutions such as the National Institute of Technology (NIT), National Forensic Science University and Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT). (PTI)
