Locally manufactured telecom products should be given priority: DoT working group

 

A working group constituted by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to chalk out a roadmap for the telecom sector in the 12th Five-Year Plan has said that domestically manufactured telecom products should be given 100 per cent preference in government-funded projects.

The Group’s suggestion is in line with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India?s (TRAI) recommendation.

Prior to this, TRAI had recommended preferential sourcing of locally produced telecom equipment and other components. It said that the use of indigenous products in telecom networks should be increased from 3 per cent in 2009-10 to 80 per cent by 2020.

The regulator had proposed to offer incentives to operators to ensure sourcing of Indian products, as well as penalise them in case of non-compliance with the proposed sourcing norms.

TRAI had said that if an operator is unable to meet the criteria of market access, it has to deposit an amount equal to 5 per cent of the shortfall in the value of the equipment in the Telecom Research Fund or the Telecom Equipment Manufacturing Fund.

However, while the DoT group favoured giving incentives to telecom operators for sourcing indigenously made products, it was against imposing a penalty on the operators for purchasing foreign equipment.

The group said that operators should commit to purchasing Indian products when they were comparable in price and performance to imported products.

The group also recommended that operators should fund research and development-related activities for creating new intellectual property right (IPR) technologies.