Manufacturing telecom gear in India may get a Rs 3,000 crore push

TTDF aims to fund R&D in rural-specific communication technology applications

In a bid to raise domestic manufacturing of telecom gear, a key government fund aimed at research and development (R&D) in the telecom space may be expanded in the next few months, officials from the department of telecommunications (DoT) said. 

Currently pegged at 5 per cent of the annual collections of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) or about Rs 500 crore, the corpus of the Telecom Technology Development Fund (TTDF) can be expanded to about Rs 3,000 crore, an official said.
 

Its mandate will also be widened beyond rural-specific communications to include R&D for ‘Made in India’ networking and telecom