Jyotiraditya Scindia, Union Minister of Communications and Development of North Eastern Region, and Dr Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani, Minister of State for Communications and Minister of State for Rural Development held separate meetings with the stakeholders advisory committee (SAC) on telecom sector original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), telecom service providers (TSPs), and tele-electronic eco-system.
Focus of the meeting was on making India a hub of telecom products manufacturing and ease of doing business. In this regard, he mentioned that all industry segments, TSPs, telecom industry associations, global and local manufacturers should work together to make India a telecom manufacturing hub for the world.
Ministry of Communications will provide all the requisite support and work together with industry to realise the setting up of ‘Telecom Manufacturing Zone’. The minister pointed out that there are already several schemes and incentives by government, including the product linked incentive (PLI), to encourage indigenous manufacturing of telecom products in India. All these efforts aim at making ‘Bharat, a product manufacturing nation’ and giving a spur to ‘Make in India, Make for the World for Telecom products’ vision.
The meetings also reviewed progress on issues taken up previously. In the meeting with TSPs, Scindia emphasised that they must maintain the standards that align with the global standards. He stated that any inconvenience to the customers is not acceptable by telemarketing or bulk messages, adding that option for acceptance or not must be provided to the users. He insisted TSPs to provide top quality service to consumers.
Further, Scindia exhorted TSPs to encourage companies whose telecom products they use, to set up manufacturing the same in India. He also suggested them to take an initiative to design an architecture of security related regulations and compliance with the law enforcement agencies for a more secure telecommunication environment. He assured representatives of all the three SACs meeting today, of full end-to-end government support for initiatives towards creating an eco-system of indigenous telecom equipment manufacturing for selling to the world.
Meanwhile, SAC on telecom electronics ecosystem in its meeting discussed creating global manufacturing super giants having own research and development (R&D) and internet protocol (IP) creating eco-system in India. Others topics including access to market for products made in India; One Nation – One Standard for Testing and Certification in India, and resolving policy issues on Public Procurement Preference – Make in India (PPP – MII) scheme were also taken up.
Industry leaders in the advisory committees expressed their thanks to Scindia for his continuing support and encouragement and the Department of Telecommunications for foster a productive and innovative environment for the growth of the telecom sector.
In the past, Minister Scindia had constituted six distinct Stakeholders Advisory Committees (SACs) to provide valuable insights to the DoT on various matters pertaining to it. Industry thought leaders, top CEOs, academicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, and start-ups are members of these committees.
