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The Human Rights Forum (HRF) has condemned the Visakhapatnam police for preventing citizens from peacefully campaigning against the establishment of massive data centres in the city.
On Sunday, August 9, which marked the anniversary of the Quit India movement, members of a group called Green Visakha had called for a procession on the Vizag beach road to spread awareness on the potential environmental impact of hyperscale artificial intelligence (AI) data centres. While police had earlier denied permission for the event, around 25 people gathered at the Bhagat Singh statue, and police arrived and objected to the small gathering too, HRF said.
The Andhra Pradesh government has announced that it has entered agreements with various companies to establish data centres with a capacity of around nine gigawatts near Vizag.
“The campaign aimed to confront serious questions arising from the sheer scale and concentration of these projects. It sought to draw attention to the enormous demands on water and power, the intensifying pressure on groundwater and other natural resources, the pollution and waste they would generate, and the wider ecological costs of allowing multiple data centre facilities to proliferate in and around a city already stretched to its limits in land, water, energy, and civic infrastructure,” HRF said.
The gathering only intended to distribute pamphlets and draw public attention to the issue, yet the police insisted that they disperse, according to HRF’s statement.
A Sub-Inspector of Police even stopped the group from taking a photograph of themselves in front of the Bhagat Singh statue, asking them to click it elsewhere, HRF alleged.
The rights organisation alleged that the incident comes “amid a growing pattern of attempts to restrict public discussion and prevent engagement with people affected by data-centre projects.”
Earlier on July 27, leaders of different Left political parties were detained by the police when they tried to visit the residents of Tarluvada village, who had been dispossessed of their land for a data centre park that is part of the Google Adani project.
Citizens’ groups and environmental activists have been campaigning against the data centres both online and in the streets, citing examples from abroad to express concern over potential environmental harm from hyperscale AI data centres, especially in a water-stressed region.
In the recent past, social media content critical of the data centres planned in Visakhapatnam have been restricted by Meta, including a video on the alleged forced displacement of Dalit residents to accommodate the Google Adani data centre in Tarluwada.
The Andhra Pradesh police have also tried to censor posts on X related to an online petition campaign against data centres.
