V Nagarajan

India’s real GDP grew by 8.2 per cent in the financial year 2024 (FY24), surpassing the 7.0 per cent growth in FY23. Domestic inflation dropped to a 12-month low of 4.75 per cent in May 2024.

The RBI has projected India’s inflation rate at 4.5 per cent for FY25, comfortably within the target range of 2-6 per cent.

The policy repo rate remained unchanged at 6.5 per cent. GST collections for the centre reached INR 20.18 lakh crore in FY24, marking an 11.6 per cent YOY increase.

Collections hit a record high of INR2.10 lakh crore in April 2024, reflecting a strong start to the current fiscal year.

These macroeconomic indicators point to resilient domestic activity in FY25, with real GDP growth projected at 7.2 per cent for the full year. In H1 of 2024, around 71 MW IT capacity was added across the key data centre markets in India.

The total stock grew at 21 per cent YOY from 778 MW IT capacity in H1 of 2023 to 942 MW IT capacity in H1 2024.

On the demand side, the market witnessed transactions of around 200 MW IT capacity, contributed by hyperscalers, BFSI, IT & ITeS and services sectors, according to Savills survey. The total IT capacity as of H1 2024 was around 942 MW, which has grown at a CAGR of 22 per cent from 158 MW in 2014, spread across Mumbai (54.9 per cent), Chennai (12.3 per cent), Delhi-NCR(11.5 per cent), Bengaluru (8.2 per cent) and Pune (7.2 per cent). Of the total stock as of H1 2024, stock dedicated for hyperscalers accounted for 22 per cent, stock dedicated for enterprises stood at 10 per cent and a mix of both hyperscalers and enterprises accounted for the remaining 68 per cent.

Although the major absorption has been from hyperscalers across cities, enterprise colocation is witnessing significant growth. Factors such as high capex and opex, along with ambiguity in predicting future demand and scalability, are driving the demand for enterprise colocation. Other aspects such as the high cost of security systems and high-performance GPUs, and high real estate costs are making it more appealing for enterprises, and in turn for operators.

India is well positioned to serve as a regional data centre hub in Asia. The adoption of 5G, increased use of internet in Tier-II and III cities, IoT and AI are likely to drive the demand for data centres.

In addition, government initiatives such as Digital India and data protection through data localisation are expected to increase the demand for data centre and cloud services. Supply in excess of 2,000 MW IT capacity is expected between 2024 to 2030 across the major cities in the country.

The demand for consumption by the end of 2024 is estimated to be around 400 MW IT capacity, complemented with supply of over 350 MW IT capacity during the same period, across major cities.

Apart from colocation services, data centre operators are increasing their service offerings to other services such as networking, private and public cloud, GPU-powered solutions and other managed services.

Tier-II and Tier-III cities are expected to drive a significant portion of the demand due to increased internet usage. There is a growing demand for edge DCs in these cities, to complement 5G bandwidth and further reduce latency for mobile and other applications.

Additionally, other major drivers include AI and IoT penetration across various sectors, where data centre operators can leverage GPU services to address these demands.

I bought agricultural land while in India as a resident. As an NRI, can I now gift or sell the land? Are there any restrictions and does it need any approval? Harshad Bhatt, Sharjah.

You can gift or sell only to a person resident in India and who is a citizen of India. Foreign national of non-Indian origin resident outside India would need prior approval of Reserve Bank to sell agricultural land/plantation property/ farm house in India.

I have been living in the Gulf for 10 years and recently inherited family property. Can I sell and repatriate sale proceeds? Sanjiv Chandy, Dubai

Yes, there is a general permission available to repatriate the sale proceeds of the immovable property inherited from a person resident in India. You may repatriate an amount not exceeding USD one million, per financial year, on production of documentary evidence in support of acquisition / inheritance of assets, an undertaking by the remitter and certificate by a chartered accountant in the formats prescribed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes.