RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Gol­con­da and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties are rais­ing con­cerns about noise, heat and the po­ten­tial im­pact on schools from the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a da­ta cen­tre at the Debe Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone along the M2 Ring Road, Gol­con­da.

The con­cerns come days af­ter En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed that the Gov­ern­ment had agreed to the con­struc­tion of a da­ta cen­tre in Gol­con­da.

The pro­posed site is in an area pop­u­lat­ed by more than 10,000 peo­ple and is with­in close prox­im­i­ty to four schools.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Debe cam­pus, which is ex­pect­ed to open soon, is al­so sit­u­at­ed near­by, along the M2 Ring Road, Debe.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Destar Dythe said res­i­dents were not op­posed to de­vel­op­ment but want­ed to be prop­er­ly in­formed about the project and its pos­si­ble im­pact.

“It’s a very con­cern­ing is­sue be­cause, you know, we are liv­ing in a vil­lage and just be­hind me, land has been cleared,” Dythe said.

She added that res­i­dents were con­cerned about the amount of noise and heat that could be gen­er­at­ed by a da­ta cen­tre.

Dythe ques­tioned whether a fa­cil­i­ty of this na­ture should be built in a dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed area, par­tic­u­lar­ly with el­der­ly peo­ple and chil­dren liv­ing near­by.

She called on the Gov­ern­ment and of­fi­cials in­volved in the project to meet with res­i­dents and pro­vide in­for­ma­tion about the de­vel­op­ment.

Mean­while, res­i­dent In­dra Ince said her con­cerns ex­tend­ed to the schools in the area, where per­sis­tent noise could af­fect stu­dents’ abil­i­ty to con­cen­trate.

“If they can put it some­where else, be­cause if it is good for the coun­try, it has so much land all over, why don’t they do it some­where else?” she asked.

Res­i­dent Awaz Sookoor al­so ex­pressed con­cern about noise, par­tic­u­lar­ly for peo­ple liv­ing clos­est to the pro­posed de­vel­op­ment.

Sookoor said there should be pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion be­fore con­struc­tion be­gins.

He said res­i­dents should be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide feed­back and un­der­stand what mea­sures would be put in place to ad­dress their con­cerns.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal dis­missed res­i­dents’ con­cerns about pos­si­ble noise and heat.

“We have no da­ta cen­tres; we have com­put­er labs. How do they know about heat and noise?”

He added: “We have been ac­cu­rate­ly in­formed that this ac­tiv­i­ty will not lead to any dis­tur­bances to the vil­lages and com­mu­ni­ties, ex­cept to ex­pand busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties, cre­ate jobs and bring need­ed pros­per­i­ty to the com­mu­ni­ties dev­as­tat­ed by the PNM clo­sure of both Ca­roni and Petrotrin.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for a com­ment on the project and the con­cerns raised by res­i­dents, but did not re­ceive a re­sponse up to press time.