Telecom equipment makers have committed over Rs 4,000 cr investments at IMC: Sinha

Telecom gear makers have committed to invest over Rs 4,000 crore at the India Mobile Congress, Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said Saturday.

"We were expecting investment of Rs 2,000 crore but companies have committed investment of over Rs 4,000 crore during our discussions at India Mobile Congress (IMC)," Sinha told reporters here.

The minister said major investment commitment has come from Ericsson, Samsung, Sterlite Tech, Cisco, Nokia and Intel.

"The National Digital Communications Policy has just been announced and these are the first set of investments flowing in," Sinha said.

He said discussions and announcements at IMC show that India is ready for the emerging 5G services. The 5G technology would facilitate machine-to-machine communication and has multiple usages.

"The investments will be made over a period of next one-two years," Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said.

Talking about IMC, Sinha said this will become an annual event.

"Estimates that have been shared with me so far is that in area of 50 square feet, 5,000 delegates from 20 countries, more than 300 companies participated in it and 50,000 visitors came here. I feel when this baby becomes three years old, the number of visitors will reach 1 lakh," Sinha said.

Sundararajan said IMC has generated more enthusiasm around 5G and the government has already committed to be at par with the world in launching this next generation services.

"We have already demonstrated government intent that India does not miss the 5G bus. We have already started to take initial set of action to make an enabling environment. We expect actual allocations of spectrum (for 5G services) to begin in the second half of next year," Sundararajan said.