New highlights added December 14, 2022 at 9:18 PM
- There are 13,000 direct-benefit transfer (DBT) schemes listed with the Reserve Bank of India. Most of these are notified by the Centre while some by the states. Over and above this, there are at least 10,000 more that are not DBT. So, we are looking at a universe of 20,000-25,000 schemes.
- Government schemes impact 900 million out of 1.4 billion people and 55 million micro businesses of the 62 million in the country. Financially, their budget is about Rs 20 lakh crore (~US$241 billion). Budgeting in India happens in a way that about 8-9% of our overall GDP is factored for social security, including farm loans
- In the tribal belt in Maharashtra’s Palghar, there’s a scheme for pregnant mothers where they are given money to set up a kitchen garden. Because there’s a tradition to eat local plants and fruits so that the child is not anaemic
- In the mining belts in Orissa, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, and Bihar, there’s a District Mineral Foundation Fund where all miners are supposed to deposit money. It’s enshrined in the Constitution: India needs mining but people in the belt need development schemes designed for them, too. That fund is now worth Rs 50,000 crore (~US$6 billion) but the local agencies cannot use that fund, it must be aligned with the Centre
- there’s a BOCW [Building and Other Construction Workers] Fund where construction companies are supposed to deposit a certain percentage of their project budget. I’m told it’s reached Rs 80,000 crore (~US$10 billion).
New highlights added December 22, 2022 at 9:24 PM
- Data-centre capacity is measured in terms of the power consumed—for IT and non-IT purposes (cooling, for example)—by a facility.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is building three data centres with an overall capacity of 500 megawatts (MW) in the southern Indian state of Telangana’s capital Hyderabad, is expected to meet more than half of its total requirement on its own in the next three to five years,
- Microsoft, too, is building data centres at three locations in Hyderabad. Moreover, AWS and Microsoft are developing three sites each in the western Indian state of Maharashtra’s Mumbai and Pune, respectively
- The hyperscalers—a term used for the tech giants (Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba, etc.) offering cloud, networking, and internet services—lease capacity from domestic colocation players such as Sify Technologies, CtrlS Datacentres, Netmagic (now owned by Japan-based IT-services giant NTT).
- It can take up to 60 clearances from different government agencies to set up a data centre. It’s a quagmire, understood and managed well by a limited number of players such as realtor Hiranandani Group and conglomerates Adani Group and Reliance Industries.
- When it comes to third-party data centres, investors, including PE firms, expect a return of 20%. For consumption worth Rs 100 (US0.2). So the customers such as AWS and Microsoft pay Rs 120 (US$1.5),
- In Hyderabad, the executive said, the company could save ~50%, thanks to the single-window mechanism, power availability, and cheaper land and sops it secured from the state government. It will not only help the company reduce the cost for customers to host on the cloud and become more competitive but also provide flexibility with respect to design and development, the executive added.
- It took six to 12 months for the hyperscaler to decide on the two cities—Mumbai and Hyderabad—where it was going to build its two regions. To pass muster, a city (state government) had to offer: political backing; the ability to execute; better power and fibre infrastructure; better climatic and weather conditions; proximity (within a 1,000-kilometre radius) to sea-cable-landing stations; and ensure low latency.
Done till here