Cabinet approves $100-billion investment goal in e-communication

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday has cleared a new telecom policy, which aims to provide broadband to all, create an additional four million jobs and get $100 billion investment in the digital communications sector by 2022. 

The objectives of the National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP) 2018 include enhancing the contribution of the digital communications sector to 8 per cent of India's GDP from 6 per cent in 2017 and propelling the country to the top-50 nations in the ICT Development Index of International Telecommunication Union (ITU) from 134 in 2017. 

The policy also calls for rationalisation of levies for the telecom sector, which is struggling under financial stress. Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said work on most of the aspects of the policy will be done within a year. 

Reacting to the policy, telecom industry body COAI said it hopes that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will closely monitor the timely implementation of this policy, so that the industry can recuperate from the deepening financial stress. “The most important and urgent requirement is to restore the financial health of the sector for which the policy document envisages the reduction in levies and ease of doing business,” Rajan S Mathews, director general, COAI. 

The policy objectives include providing universal broadband connectivity at 50 Mbps to every citizen, 10 Gbps connectivity to all gram panchayats by 2022, connectivity to all uncovered areas, training one million manpower for building new age skills, expanding IoT ecosystem to five billion connected devices and establishing a comprehensive data protection regime for digital communications that safeguards the privacy, autonomy and choice of individuals. 

On the licensing reforms discussed in the policy, Harsh Walia, Associate Partner, Khaitan & Co, said, “The indicated reforms to the license framework seem to suggest that DoT looks to shed its image of a revenue-monger to a business-facilitator as charges, taxes and levies may be rationalised. In particular, spectrum usage charges may now only reflect administrative costs.”