New telecom policy aims to provide broadband access to all citizens by 2022

Proposes to attract $100 bn investment in digital communications sector

Published - September 26, 2018 10:17 pm IST - NEW DELHI

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the new telecom policy that aims to provide broadband access to every citizen at 50 Mbps speed by the year 2022.

The National Digital Communications Policy 2018, which envisions attracting $100 billion investments into the country’s digital communications sector, aims at creating at least 40 lakh new jobs in the sector in the next four years.

Evolving at rapid pace

“The last telecom policy was announced in 2012… The communication sector has been evolving at a rapid pace globally, especially with technologies such as 5G and Internet of Things. There was a need for a new consumer-centric and application-centric policy,” Minister for Communications Manoj Sinha told the media.

The policy aims at expanding the IoT ecosystem to five billion connected devices, create globally recognised IPRs in India and create a fund for R&D in new technologies. It also pitches for leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Big Data to enhance the quality of services offered, spectrum management and network security while also establishing India as a global hub for cloud computing. Welcoming the much-awaited policy, the industry called for a close monitoring of its timely implementation “so that the industry can recuperate from the deepening financial stress.” “Thus, 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. This will help the industry in achieving the goals of and fulfilling the objectives outlined in the policy,” said Rajan S. Mathews, DG at industry body COAI.

The policy has called for a review of levies and fees — including licence fee, universal service obligation fund levy and spectrum usage charges, on the sector. This is expected to help the debt-laden telecom sector. However, the government may take up to a year to decide on these issues the Minister said in response to a query.

The new policy aims to enhance the contribution of the digital communications sector to India GDP to 8% from 6% in 2017. According to a study by ICRIER, a 17% increase in India’s Internet traffic in 2015-16 resulted in an absolute increase of $103.9 billion in India’s GDP.

The study added that the $100 billion investment envisioned in the new policy could cumulatively add $1.21 trillion to the GDP over the period of proposed investment.

The policy also stresses on the need for a comprehensive data protection regime for digital communications to safeguard privacy, autonomy and choice for individuals.

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