PM Modi to inaugurate RBI's ₹169-crore data centre in Bhubaneswar, second after Navi Mumbai

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate the Reserve Bank of India's new data centre at Jatni, on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, officials said. The facility has been built at a cost of about ₹169 crore and is the central bank's second dedicated data centre of its kind, following the one in Navi Mumbai.

The Bhubaneswar facility is expected to host a range of the RBI's critical information technology systems — the servers and networks that support its core operations, including payment and settlement systems, government securities processing, currency management and cyber-security monitoring. Data centres of this kind are the backbone of modern central banking, and disruptions can affect the flow of money across the banking system.

The RBI has, over the past few years, been moving its IT infrastructure into purpose-built, professionally managed facilities rather than the mixed-use office buildings where such systems were historically housed. The Navi Mumbai centre, already operational, was the first step in that direction; the Bhubaneswar centre is intended to provide a second, geographically separate site.

Having two data centres in different parts of the country serves a specific purpose. Regulators generally require financial institutions to maintain a primary site and a backup site far enough apart that a single natural disaster, power failure or security incident cannot knock out both at once. For the RBI, whose systems underpin interbank transfers and the settlement of government debt, such redundancy is treated as essential infrastructure rather than an optional safeguard.

The centre also fits into India's broader push for data localisation in the financial sector. In 2018, the RBI directed payment system operators to store data relating to payment systems within India, with limited provision for processing abroad subject to conditions. Since then, banks and payment companies have built domestic data capacity, and the central bank's own facilities are part of the same effort to keep sensitive financial data within Indian jurisdiction.

For Odisha, the project is being presented as an addition to the state's information technology footprint. The state has in recent years sought to position itself as a destination for data centre investment, citing land availability, power supply and a lower cost base than established hubs such as Mumbai and Chennai. Jatni, a town about 20 km from Bhubaneswar, is also home to the Indian Institute of Technology's Bhubaneswar campus.

Details of the facility — including its capacity, the number of server racks it houses and the full range of systems it will run — have not been made public by the RBI, and the central bank has not issued a detailed statement on the inauguration programme. Information about the event, including its exact date and the officials attending, should be treated as provisional until formally confirmed by the RBI or the Prime Minister's Office.

The inauguration also comes at a time when the reliability of financial-sector technology is under close scrutiny, following outages at exchanges and payment platforms in recent years that prompted regulators to tighten operational-resilience norms. Dedicated, duplicated data infrastructure is a common response to such concerns, though its effectiveness depends on how well the systems are tested and maintained after commissioning.