‘Draft National Telecom Policy likely on May 1’

“The direction of the new policy, that we hope you will see as early as on May 1, will be reform-oriented, it will be investor friendly and bring down the cost of compliances,” Sundararajan said while speaking at the Annual General Meeting of US industry body Amcham. 

She mentioned that the proposed National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2018 will be placed for public comments for 15-20 days. “It (NTP) will hopefully trigger innovation, will focus on Make in India and provide opportunities for partnering with lit of companies,” Sundararajan said. After completion of public comments, the Department of Telecom will start inter-ministerial consultation on the policy and thereafter approach Cabinet for final approval, she said.

Meanwhile, the Indian mobile manufacturing industry is expected to touch Rs 132,000 crore by the end of 2018, Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Thursday.'

India manufactured about 110 million mobile phones in 2015-16 as compared to 60 million in 2014-15, a growth of over 90 per cent. In value terms, India’s mobile manufacturing industry produced mobile phones worth Rs 54,000 crore in FY15-16, compared to Rs 18,900 crore in FY14-15. This touched Rs 94,000 crore by the end of 2017, the minister said. He was speaking at an event organised by MeitY, Assocham and Ericsson.

In terms of volume, in 2014 India produced 5 crore mobile phone made locally in India, which reached 15 crore in 2015-16. In 2017 the Indian mobile manufacturing industry produced 22 million mobile phones. “The industry would produce 50 million mobile phones by 2020,” said the minister.

In terms of electronics manufacturing units, the minister said that within three years, the industry added 120 such units. Two-third of these were mobile manufacturing units and there were 54 such units in Noida alone. These industries employ 5 lakh people, he added.

Taking a cue from industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s oft-repeated statement that ‘data is the new oil’, the Minister urged entrepreneurs to help India become a big centre for data analysis. “How can you help India become a big centre of data analysis? As someone said, data is the new oil.”

The minister said the government needed data for policy making but the data procured should be anonymous. Prasad added: “My take on data privacy is very simple. There has to be a balance between data availability, data utility, data innovation, data anonymity and data privacy.” Saying that “we generate a lot of data”, the minister added that it should be properly safeguarded.