MUMBAI: Mass protests by farmers and fishermen against a proposed AI-based data centre near the Ujani dam in Solapur have forced the consortium developing the project to drop two components – a green hydrogen plant and a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) nuclear reactor.
The original MoU was signed in April and a revised MoU will now be signed, covering only the AI data centre, and floating solar power plant and battery storage project. The government had not taken locals into confidence and unilaterally announced the project, which angered the villagers. The Ujani data centre, in Madha taluka, is a public-private partnership (PPP) project between the state Water Resources Department, and JW Global and The SEED Consortium Partners. When the plan triggered a backlash from farmers and fishing communities, Madha MP Dhairyasheel Mohite-Patil wrote to the district and state administrations, and legislators and MPs across political parties in Solapur, Pune and Ahilyanagar as the backwaters of the Ujani dam spread across all three districts. “When we learnt about the project, we turned to the internet for information and realised that people across the world are objecting to data centres in their areas. We learnt that data centres need huge amounts of water, and that the Ujani dam is in a drought-prone area.
Nandkumar Nagare, chairperson of the Maharashtra Rajya Machhimar Sangharsh Kruti Samiti says that regardless of assurances, the floating solar power plant will compromise the livelihood of over 30,000 people from the fishing community and they would continue to protest.
This follows protests from the farming and fishing communities, who said the project would create water shortages and compromise irrigation as well as fishing activities in the reservoir. Saurabh Arkile, with the Ujani Dam Conservation Committee and a farmer from Bhima Nagar near the Ujani dam, said they learnt about the project only when farmers cultivating on irrigation department land and people living in the Bhima Nagar colony received eviction notices. Here, locals, farmers and industries are already facing water shortages this year,” says Arkile. “We realised that all four components of the project would require 8 TMC of water annually and this would compromise the water needs of cities, agricultural land, and the industrial sector,” he added. “We don’t believe the administration’s claims and will raise our voice at the upcoming public hearings,” he said.
On October 31, NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar and Mohite-Patil led a protest near Ujani dam. They claimed the project would require 7-8 TMC of water from the Ujani reservoir, which would create water shortages. Karthikeyan claimed it would consume around 1% of the Ujani dam’s storage capacity While explaining the data centre project’s water needs. The floating solar power project would further reduce evaporation by 0.5 to 1.25 TMC in different conditions. He also said the floating solar power project would cover 3,000 hectares of the Ujani reservoir’s surface area of 33,630 hectares – 9% of the reservoir’s surface area.
They also claimed the floating solar power plant would impact fishing activities. His solution to concerns over disturbance to the reservoir’s delicate ecosystem and the impact on the fish that live in it was a mechanical one.
Following the protests, Solapur district collector S Karthikeyan said JW Global had informed the state government that it would drop the green hydrogen plant and nuclear reactor from the project. The cooling technology used by the project would mean it will consume 0.53 TMC water against the “general perception” of 5-6 TMC, he said. “This saving will be more than the allocation of water for the data centre and will not affect any current or future water allocation to others,” claimed Karthikeyan. “Solar panels will be set up in patches so that fishing activity, fishing routes, fishing sites, fish breeding spots will not be impacted,” he said.
