The view from the 21st floor

Tushar Shetty, a 46-year-old engineer, bought a 21st-floor flat in Thane. Five months later, the trees outside his window came down. Reuters, which reported his story on 9 October 2026, described what replaced them: “a scar of red earth where trees were felled.” Shetty’s verdict was short. “I would not have bought the house if I had known,” he said.

His sentence holds the whole dispute in miniature. It is not a complaint about technology. It is a complaint about information: what a family can know before it commits its savings to a home, and who gets told when a very large industrial facility is planned next door.

The facility is a data centre in Balkum, on the edge of Thane city. It has become a test of how India pursues its ambition to be a backbone of the artificial intelligence age.

What is being built, and what is not

The specific campus is a data-centre development by Amazon Data Services India, part of Amazon Web Services (AWS), in Balkum, Thane, within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. It is not in Mumbai itself, though Thane adjoins the city’s suburban edge.

The sources give slightly different site sizes. Reuters calls it a 54-acre planned facility, while Frontline reports that Amazon bought 53 acres from Kalpataru Builders for Rs 1,870 crore. About 22 hectares is roughly 54 acres; the sources do not explain the one-acre difference, so this article says about 53 to 54 acres.

A Reuters photograph from 22 September 2026 shows workers and excavators at the site, and its reporting describes felled trees and cleared red earth. Site preparation is under way; the sources reviewed do not say what stage construction has reached.

The wider commitments are a separate matter. In a statement on 22 January 2025, AWS announced $8.3 billion for its Asia-Pacific (Mumbai) Region in Maharashtra by 2030, part of a $12.7 billion India commitment first announced in May 2023. Reuters says the Thane facility forms part of Amazon’s planned $21 billion investment in AI infrastructure in India by 2030. These are programme-level figures, not the cost of the Balkum campus. No verified filing located for this article states that cost, and no verified employment figure for the Thane site has emerged either.

Why does the location matter? Reuters, Frontline and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre all place the site close to homes. Residents quoted by Frontline say five schools, three hospitals and more than 50,000 people live around the area. Those counts come from residents and have not been independently verified. That proximity is the root of nearly every objection.

What the residents say

The opposition is organised under the name Wake Up Thanekar. Frontline reports a human chain on 18 July 2026. Reuters reports that on 8 September hundreds of residents gathered beside the site holding placards, including one reading “Data centres are energy vampires.” Reuters also says more than 1,000 residents living near the site believe the project was pushed through without meaningful consultation; Amazon’s position is that the permits and clearances were duly obtained.

Politicians of different parties have joined. Frontline quotes Thane’s Shiv Sena MP, Naresh Mhaske, saying the project “needs to be shifted out of Thane city.” Reuters reports that Aaditya Thackeray, an opposition legislator from the UBT Shiv Sena, joined protesters in September demanding that the project be relocated.

Residents raise six concerns, some documented and some allegations or estimates.

Water. According to Frontline, Amazon’s regulatory submission to the Thane Municipal Corporation says the data centre would need 125,000 litres a day, and Amazon’s published account gives the same total of 125 kilolitres. Frontline also quotes Manoj Pradhan, identified as an opposition leader, saying residents had read a statement by Municipal Commissioner Saurabh Rao that 12 million litres a day are required. That is roughly a hundredfold gap. No primary record of the Commissioner’s statement was found, and no source reviewed reconciles the two numbers. The 12-million-litre figure is an unverified allegation.

Electricity. Residents estimate the campus will need an uninterrupted 420 MW, according to Frontline. That is their estimate, not a confirmed specification. Activist Avinash Chitnis told Frontline that Thane had seen unofficial load-shedding for six months, which explains the anxiety.

Noise and diesel generators. Residents interviewed by Frontline say the noise would exceed 60 decibels. Reports by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Yahoo Finance cite roughly 190 diesel backup generators. Neither the noise level nor the generator count has been independently verified.

Heat. Residents say the facility will create a heat island that raises temperatures in Balkum, Dhokali and Majiwada by two to three degrees Celsius, citing a study by their group. The study could not be located in published form.

Trees. That trees were felled is not in dispute; Reuters saw the result. The argument is over scale and adequacy.

Property values. Reuters quoted broker Atul Jadhav as saying that buyer concerns may be hurting nearby resale prices. That is one broker’s assessment, not market data.

Amazon’s answer

Amazon has responded firmly, calling some claims about the project false and publishing what it calls the facts. Its account deserves a hearing on its merits.

On water, Amazon says the facility will not use any water for cooling. It says total use will be 125 kilolitres a day, of which 10 are for basic human needs, and 115 are treated sewage water for landscaping and irrigation, supplied by the local civic body.

On power, Amazon says it will not draw electricity from the local distribution network that supplies homes, shops and businesses, and will instead use an industrial connection to the high-voltage transmission grid and its own dedicated substation. On noise, it says the facility will be built and operated within the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, and that its generators will not be in constant use, running mostly for brief mid-day tests.

On trees, Amazon says its Tree No Objection Certificate approves the felling of 239 trees, the replanting of 77 and 2,209 compensatory plantings, and that it submitted a geotag report to the municipal corporation on 27 May 2026. It told Reuters that more saplings were planted than trees removed. On approvals, it says its environmental impact assessment and supporting documents are on the government’s PARIVESH portal. It also describes community programmes, including STEM education for 900 students in nine Thane schools.

A note on evidence is needed here. Each of these figures comes from Amazon’s own published account or its comments to Reuters; the underlying permits and the PARIVESH record were not examined. The residents’ numbers (the 12 million litres, 420 MW, 190 generators and two to three degrees of heating) are equally unchecked. At this point, both sides’ figures are being taken on trust.

Taken at face value, Amazon’s account answers several technical worries. It does not answer the question residents keep returning to: was the community asked before the site was chosen? Nothing in it establishes that a meaningful public consultation took place, and whether one was legally required for a project of this category is open. The cumulative load on local water and power, and whether a site this close to homes was right, also remain contested.

The industry itself is not united on siting. Sharad Agarwal, chief executive of Sify Infinit Spaces, which runs 14 data centres, said at an industry event in September, as reported by Reuters: “I will never set up a data centre in a residential area.”

A national question in a local fight

Balkum matters beyond Thane because of the national ambition. Reuters reports that the central government promotes data centres online as “the invisible engines powering India’s digital life,” and that the IT ministry, the Prime Minister’s Office and Maharashtra’s chief minister’s office did not respond to its requests for comment on the Thane protests.

General research on Indian data centres should be kept separate from evidence about this site. Reuters writes that India holds 4 per cent of the world’s freshwater for 18 per cent of its people, and reports S&P Global’s estimate that 60 to 80 per cent of Indian data centres could face high water stress this decade. Reuters, citing Mordor Intelligence, also reports that data centres used about 150 billion litres of water in 2025, a figure projected to more than double by 2030. The passage appears in Reuters’ reporting on India, but the sentence itself does not say whether the figure covers India or a wider area, so it should be read as context to be confirmed, not as a settled national total.

None of this shows that the Thane campus will strain local water; Amazon’s stated design is meant to avoid that. It does show why residents elsewhere will ask the same questions.

Investment, jobs and the limits of the argument

The case for building is real. AWS estimates that its $8.3 billion Maharashtra investment will contribute $15.3 billion to India’s GDP and support more than 81,300 full-time jobs a year in the local data-centre supply chain by 2030, according to its January 2025 announcement. Supporters can also argue that hosting AI’s physical infrastructure is a plausible strategy for India.

But these are statewide projections made by the company, not outcomes verified for the Thane site. They do not tell a family on the 21st floor whether the air, noise and water around them will change. A national benefit does not cancel a local cost; it means the cost should be weighed openly, with those who bear it in the room.

The state’s response, and what should come next

Frontline and the Times of India report that Maharashtra has constituted a special committee under the nuclear scientist Dr Anil Kakodkar to review its data-centre policy and recommend safeguards and standard operating procedures; Frontline links the move to Industries Minister Uday Samant. But key details are not public in the sources reviewed: its terms of reference, its timeline, and whether construction at Balkum pauses while it works. If its recommendations arrive after building has advanced, they may do little for this site, though they could still shape future projects.

Five measures would make data-centre planning more responsible. These are my recommendations, not findings from the research.

1. Siting rules. Set minimum distances between large data centres and homes, schools and hospitals, so that location is decided by policy rather than by whichever parcel of land is available.
2. Early public consultation. Require consultation before land is committed, in plain language, with records made public.
3. Project-level disclosure. Publish water, electricity and generator specifications, and reconcile any gap between company and official figures before construction begins.
4. Independent monitoring. Allow third-party measurement of noise, emissions and local temperature, with results available to residents.
5. A transparent review. Publish the Kakodkar committee’s mandate and timeline, and state whether work on contested sites continues in the meantime.

If it goes ahead, we will move.

Vasudha Shetty, 62, put the choice plainly: “If the data centre stops, we will stay… If it goes ahead, we will move.”

Not everyone can afford to say that sentence, and no one should have to. India can host a great deal of the world’s data, and the case for doing so is serious. But the choice is not between technology and the neighbourhood. It is between development carried out in the open, with disclosed numbers, enforceable limits and a real say for those who live beside it, and development that people discover only when the trees disappear.

The “invisible engines” of India’s digital life, in the government’s phrase, have to be built somewhere. Balkum shows that where they go, and who is told, is a question of rights as much as of engineering. Answering it openly is the surest way to keep both the investment and public trust.

References:

1. Amazon Staff. (22 January 2025). “AWS plans $8.3 billion investment in cloud infrastructure in Maharashtra by 2030.” About Amazon India. https://www.aboutamazon.in
2. Amazon Staff. (29 June 2026; updated 2 September 2026). “Facts about Amazon’s upcoming data centre in Thane, Maharashtra.” About Amazon India. https://www.aboutamazon.in
3. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. (12 August 2026). “India: Proposed Amazon data centre in Balkum opposed by residents, citing concerns over impacts on heat, noise & air quality, incl. co. comment.” https://www.bhrrc.org
4. Dixit, P. (18 May 2023). “Amazon commits Rs 1,05,600 crore to boost cloud infrastructure in India by 2030.” Business Today. https://businesstoday.in
5. Estrada, G. (10 October 2026). “Amazon’s Thane Data Centre Fight: A $8.3 Billion Plan Inside a $173 Billion Capex Budget.” Yahoo Finance/TIKR. https://finance.yahoo.com
6. Frontline. (n.d.). “Why Thane Residents Are Opposing Amazon’s Data Centre.” Frontline (The Hindu Group). https://frontline.thehindu.com
7. Sharma, V., Vengattil, M., & Kalra, A. (9 October 2026). “Modi wants India to power the AI age. Residents are pushing back.” Reuters. (Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma, Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra; editing by Shri Navaratnam.) https://www.reuters.com
8. Times of India. (n.d.). “Drought, water deficit fuel fresh push to halt Balkum data centre in Thane.” https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Notes: S&P Global and Mordor Intelligence figures are cited as reported by Reuters, not from the original reports. Amazon references the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, and says its environmental documents are available on PARIVESH. The underlying permit record was not consulted directly.

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