IIT, IISc and IIM faculties urge new govt to set up telecom R&D fund

Say fund would make India self-reliant in telecom technology

Faculty members from IITs, IISc and IIMs have urged the new government to set-up a new Telecom Research and Development Fund (TRDF) and Telecom Entrepreneurship Development Fund (TEDF) to catalyse the manufacturing eco-system.  

 

"Delay in setting up such funds will cost us dearly and time is just ripe for us to shape the contours of future telecom evolution", faculty members said, in a statement evoking the NTP.

The funds would make India self-reliant in telecom technology for commercial and national strategic use, they added.

 

The National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012 had floated a proposal to raise funds for product development, IPR generation and manufacturing. 

 

These funds included Telecom Research and Development Fund or TRDF (to promote R&D towards IPR and promote product development), TEDF (to promote start-ups in the area) and Telecom manufacturing promotion fund or TMPF (to promote manufacturing in India).

 

A committee was also set up by DoT to develop the blueprint of TRDF, TEDF and TMPF and a report was submitted by the committee in early 2013.

 

"The government funding for telecom product development will create a pull-through effect for overall electronics manufacturing, thereby resulting in a reduced import-bill and bridging of the trade deficit. The growth of the telecom manufacturing sector will also result in large scale job creation," said the statement.

 

"Apart from the economic angle, there is a strategic angle as well. Imported telecom equipment can pose a big security threat. Today, telecom networks are considered strategic infrastructure. Equipment deployed in such networks could have potential malware in it, which could even be triggered from outside India. This could seriously jeopardise national security, " they added.

 

Background

 

The Indian telecom sector has been growing in the last two decades. Today, the total number of cell phone subscriptions is in excess of 850 million. The total revenue due to mobile services is more than Rs 1.70 lakh crore per year.Tele-density in the country is close to 75%, making India the second largest telecom market in the world, next to China.

 

Demand for telecom equipment was close to a whopping Rs 75,000 crore in 2012-13 and projected to grow to more than Rs 1.70 lakh crore by 2019-20. A majority of this demand is met by imports and the telecom trade deficit stands at 70% of the total demand. This implies that the majority of equipment being bought by telecom operators is manufactured outside India.

 

To this, one needs to add the import of subscriber equipment, including cell-phones, tablets and laptops used to access the telecom network. In 2013, about 150 million cell phones were imported at a total value of nearly Rs 30,000 crore.

 

Despite India having large talent pools of system, software and chip design engineers,components and devices are almost always 100% imported, and Indian Intellectual Property (IP) embedded in the equipment is marginal.