Sumnesh Joshi, Deputy Director General, Ministry of Communications, Government of India
India’s data centre sector is expanding rapidly, driven by rising demand for compute. As connectivity spreads deeper into the country through initiatives such as the amended BharatNet Programme (ABP) and Right of Way (RoW) reforms under the Telecommunications Act, data centre infrastructure is increasingly being connected through a solid backbone. At tele.net’s 9th Annual Conference on Data Centres in India, held in Mumbai in April 2026, Sumnesh Joshi, Deputy Director General, Ministry of Communications, Government of India, shared his views on the connectivity backbone underpinning data centre growth and the sector’s responsibilities in securing the national digital ecosystem.
From passive infrastructure to active backbone
The perception of data centres as passive infrastructure is no longer adequate. In a data-driven digital economy, every service that reaches a citizen, from a government benefit transfer to a financial transaction or an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered application, flows through data centre infrastructure. This makes the sector an active participant in national digital delivery, not a neutral utility sitting at the edge of the value chain.
Connectivity is the foundation on which this active role rests. Optical fibre is the highway; as data traffic grows, the pipe must keep pace. The government’s response to this need is the ABP, which builds on the earlier BharatNet phases. The ABP takes a more ambitious approach, extending fibre to every village in the country through a ring topology network. This replaces the linear topology of Phase 1, which left the network exposed to single-point failures. A fibre cut under the old architecture could bring down connectivity for an entire area. Under ring topology, traffic reroutes automatically, ensuring continuity of service.
The ABP is also structured as a 10-year contract, requiring operators to execute deployment and maintain the network over the full period against defined SLAs.
Common ducts, RoW and state-level alignment
Alongside the ABP, a common duct policy is being developed in coordination with state governments to provide shared physical conduits for fibre deployment across roads and cities. Where physical conduits are not feasible, aerial fibre deployment policies are also being developed to cover the remaining gaps.
RoW has long been a friction point for telecom infrastructure roll-out. The Telecommunications Act addresses this directly, with provisions to streamline approvals and reduce bureaucratic delays at the state and district levels. Implementation is being monitored centrally, with state governments asked to apply the act in its true spirit.
The trust imperative
One of the most pressing issues facing the data centre sector today is not one that receives consistent attention: the use of data centre infrastructure for illegal telecom activity. Law enforcement and the DoT have identified and shut down several illegal session initiation protocol networks used for grey routing of calls.
The instinct within the sector to treat itself as a neutral provider, responsible only for uptime, power availability and tier classification, is insufficient given this threat. Data centres are custodians of national digital infrastructure, and that custodianship carries obligations. Three specific steps are needed from every operator:
Conduct thorough due diligence on every entity before onboarding, including KYC verification and confirmation that the entity is compliant with applicable laws and regulations.
Verify that all internet leased lines entering the facility are sourced from licensed internet service providers, using the Sanchar Saathi portal maintained by DoT as the reference.
Monitor traffic continuously and report abnormal patterns to DoT or the cyber cell. AI-based monitoring tools are now available for real-time detection of VoIP abuse and traffic anomalies.
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 adds a further compliance layer, requiring data centres to ensure the security and privacy of all hosted data.
Speed, scale and security
Demand for data centre capacity is not slowing. India’s 5G roll-out is among the fastest in the world, edge computing infrastructure is moving closer to Tier II and Tier III cities, and smartphone costs have fallen to around $50, putting high speed internet within reach of a much larger share of the population. Smart village initiatives will extend digital demand to the last mile, creating a distributed need for compute that goes well beyond the large hyperscale campuses currently concentrated in metros.
Going forward, speed, scale and security must advance together. An ecosystem in which citizens can share their data with confidence, where phishing calls are systematically eliminated and illegal network routing is detected and shut down, is one that can sustain long-term investment and deliver on the promise of a digitally developed India.
