The Department of Telecommunications plans to hold a meeting with the key stakeholders of the telecom industry on May 05, 2011. The agenda of the meeting includes discussing the policy to boost local equipment manufacturing.
Prior to this, the Telecom regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had already suggested several measures to encourage Indian manufacturers that will cost the exchequer Rs 1 trillion over a 10-year period. The regulator expects the returns to be almost 10 times the investment.
According to TRAI, the demand for telecom equipment in India was Rs 547.65 billion in 2009-10, which was about 5.5 per cent of the global demand. This is projected to grow to Rs 965.14 billion in 2015 and Rs 1700 billion in 2020. The contribution of all domestic products towards meeting the country’s demand for telecom equipment has only been 12-13 per cent in 2009-10 while Indian products could meet three per cent of the Indian demand. The regulator wants the share of the Indian products to be progressively enhanced to cater to at least 50 per cent of the demand by 2019-20.
To spur the local manufacturing segment, TRAI has suggested that the domestic manufactured products are proposed to be given preferential market access. All local players with annual turnover less than Rs 10 billion would get subsidy for equity capital and working capital for five years.
