According to the Economic Survey 2025–26, India’s telecom sector has recorded strong gains under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, with exports growing at an average annual rate of 1.5 per cent between financial year 2020-21 (FY21) and FY25, while imports declined by 18.5 per cent over the same period.
The PLI scheme for telecom equipment manufacturing, launched in 2021 with an outlay of Rs 121.95 billion, has attracted investments of over Rs 47 billion and generated more than Rs 1 trillion in sales, including Rs 210 billion in exports. The initiative has also created around 30,000 jobs.
In FY25 alone, telecom equipment exports jumped 51.2 per cent year-on-year, the survey said. However, it also noted that imports of telecom gear, electronic components and computer hardware rose sharply in the financial year ended March 31, 2025.
The survey highlighted that telecom services contribute about 1.2 per cent to India’s gross value addition (GVA) and serve as a critical pillar of the digital economy by improving access, affordability and service delivery across sectors.
The survey also mentioned that total telephone connections increased from around 933 million in 2014 to over 1.2 billion by November 2025, with tele-density rising from 75 per cent to 86.8 per cent, largely driven by faster growth in rural areas. Internet subscriptions expanded significantly from about 2.5 million to 10.18 million by September 2025, alongside higher broadband penetration.
Affordability improvements have also driven a sharp rise in average monthly data usage per subscriber, which climbed from 62 MB in 2014 to around 25 GB by mid-2025.
According to the survey, telecom operators have rolled out 5G services across 99.9 per cent of India’s districts, supported by 0.51 million 5G base stations. The rapid deployment has been aided by timely spectrum auctions, financial reforms related to adjusted gross revenue (AGR), bank guarantees and interest rates, the removal of spectrum usage charges on spectrum acquired from 2022 onwards, simplified Standing Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency Allocation (SACFA) clearances, the GatiShakti Sanchar portal and streamlined right-of-way approvals.
On rural connectivity, the survey said the 4G saturation programme approved in 2022 has led to the deployment of 13,415 towers covering 19,901 villages. The BharatNet project has extended broadband connectivity to 0.21 million gram panchayats using optical fibre and satellite links.
The survey also pointed to major gains in fraud prevention through initiatives such as Sanchar Saathi, the Digital Intelligence Platform, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven fraud detection systems, the financial fraud risk Indicator, international spoofed call prevention mechanisms and the Indian counterfeited device restriction system. Together, these measures have helped identify and disconnect around 330 million fraudulent connections, flag nearly 9 million suspicious financial transactions, and prevent losses of about Rs 6.6 billion so far.
