Data centre for Golconda

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal yes­ter­day con­firmed that Gov­ern­ment has agreed to the con­struc­tion of a da­ta cen­tre in Gol­con­da, south Trinidad. Mooni­lal said suit­able land has been iden­ti­fied in the area to build the fa­cil­i­ty with­in the Debe Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone, lo­cat­ed off the M2 Ring Road.

“There are large tracts of land in our ar­eas, through­out Gol­con­da, Pic­ton, go­ing down to Bar­rack­pore and so on,” Mooni­lal said.

Speak­ing to re­porters while dis­trib­ut­ing school­books and bags to con­stituents at his of­fice in Debe, Mooni­lal said some of the land in the area had al­ready been ear­marked for hous­ing for for­mer Ca­roni work­ers.

He said oth­er suit­able lands near Debe had been iden­ti­fied for the da­ta cen­tre.

Mooni­lal said the project was par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant for south Trinidad, which he said had suf­fered eco­nom­i­cal­ly fol­low­ing the clo­sure of Ca­roni 1975 Lim­it­ed and Petrotrin.

“In fact, we have had a dou­ble shot of clo­sures—Ca­roni and Petrotrin,” he said, adding that there had been “no in­dus­tri­al ex­pan­sion ac­tiv­i­ty in south Trinidad for many, many years.”

He said the da­ta cen­tre could spark fur­ther in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion.

“We be­lieve that that will trig­ger off a process of much more in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment in these ar­eas,” Mooni­lal said.

Mooni­lal al­so said res­i­dents had al­ready been ask­ing about em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties at the fa­cil­i­ty.

“In Debe, they ask me, how much jobs can they get?” he said.

He said con­stituents had even been ap­proach­ing him about jobs for their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren.

“So, I have been in­un­dat­ed, been hound­ed down by con­stituents ask­ing for jobs in that da­ta cen­tre,” he said.

Mooni­lal said the project would cre­ate em­ploy­ment and gen­er­ate spin-off busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“There’s a lot of ex­cite­ment there that will cre­ate not just jobs but spin-off from busi­ness,” he said.

Two weeks ago, Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein said lands cleared at Pe­tite Morne 2 and 3, near Ste Madeleine, would be al­lo­cat­ed to for­mer Ca­roni work­ers. More than 200 acres of land have been cleared on the hill­sides from Ste Madeleine to Pic­ton.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands two sep­a­rate ar­eas have been ear­marked—one for hous­ing for for­mer Ca­roni work­ers and an­oth­er for the pro­posed da­ta cen­tre, which Mooni­lal said would be sit­u­at­ed off the M2 Ring Road near Gol­con­da and Pic­ton.

How­ev­er, con­cerns have been raised by res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty about the po­ten­tial im­pact of the da­ta cen­tre, in­clud­ing noise pol­lu­tion and in­creased tem­per­a­tures.

Re­spond­ing to those con­cerns, Mooni­lal said: “Well, the peo­ple who say it will cause noise nev­er hear da­ta cen­tre yet.”

He al­so dis­missed con­cerns about in­creased tem­per­a­tures, say­ing: “As to tem­per­a­tures, I mean to­day is a very, very hot day.”

Mooni­lal said fears sur­round­ing in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment were not un­usu­al.

“As some­one who has stud­ied in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment, there are al­ways fears and ru­mour-mon­ger­ing and so on with in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment that’s nor­mal,” he said.

He said res­i­dents would even­tu­al­ly ben­e­fit from in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment through em­ploy­ment and in­vest­ment.

“Once change comes, the peo­ple ben­e­fit by change be­cause they will get the jobs,” he said.

He al­so re­ject­ed con­cerns about the fa­cil­i­ty af­fect­ing the wa­ter sup­ply.

“The da­ta will tell us that there’s no risk to wa­ter sup­ply or any­thing like that,” he said.

Mooni­lal said he was pleased with the progress of the project and wel­comed its po­ten­tial im­pact on the re­gion.

“We are very, very con­fi­dent that this is a very, very pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment for south Trinidad and for Tren­ton Bay as a whole. And I, as MP here, I’m ex­treme­ly hap­py to wel­come the da­ta cen­tre.”

How­ev­er, pres­i­dent of the Ridge­wood Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil, De­bra Lewis-Di­az, yes­ter­day said res­i­dents want greater clar­i­ty about where the fa­cil­i­ty will be lo­cat­ed and how far it will be from ex­ist­ing homes.

“We are sim­ply ask­ing the min­is­ter to iden­ti­fy the land space that will be oc­cu­pied for this da­ta cen­tre,” she said.

Lewis-Di­az said there was a large par­cel of more than 200 acres op­po­site Ridge­wood Gar­dens Phase One and res­i­dents want­ed to know whether that land was be­ing con­sid­ered for the project.

She said res­i­dents would be more com­fort­able if the fa­cil­i­ty was lo­cat­ed a safe dis­tance away from res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties.

“I sure­ly don’t want to be­lieve that the Gov­ern­ment will be so ir­re­spon­si­ble to put that so close to a hous­ing set­tle­ment,” she said.

Lewis-Di­az al­so called for pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion be­fore the project pro­ceeds. She said res­i­dents re­mained con­cerned about po­ten­tial noise and in­creased tem­per­a­tures and want­ed the pro­posed da­ta cen­tre site clear­ly marked on a map, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause lands in the same gen­er­al area are al­so be­ing al­lo­cat­ed to for­mer Ca­roni work­ers.