As per Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Communications, Electronics and Information Technology and Railways, the National Data Governance Policy, announced in the Union Budget 2023, will focus on leveraging the non-personal datasets available with the government in areas such as weather and projects, to bring new and improved services to citizens.
The minister further noted that the National Data Governance Policy alongside the proposed personal data protection framework offers two complementary structures for India to go forward. Assuaging concerns, Vaishnaw emphasised that the National Data Governance Policy relates to non-personal data available to the government. Indian government has many datasets pertaining to non-personal data. For example, weather or climate-related wherein the datasets spanning 20-25 years can be leveraged to provide farmers with authentic predictions around weather and climate.
Separately, the minister noted that the scope of DigiLocker will be expanded such that citizens will have to get their know-your-customer (KYC) formalities done only once and can then be used to verify other services as well. He also informed that DigiLocker will eventually be expanded for KYC across various sectors.
Meanwhile, the minister asserted that the country will become a major exporter of telecom technology in the next 2-3 years. Moreover, during a post-budget conference he noted that setting up of 100 labs across the country for developing 5G-driven applications will enable the youth to build products and use cases around 5G network technology. In addition, he noted that there will be a major focus on the indigenous telecom stack in 2023 and that the indigenous telecom stack has been tested for 10 million simultaneous phone calls. The testing process was completed in November-December 2022 period, he informed. Further, Vaishnaw informed that two countries have formally expressed their interest to India in deploying the indigenous telecom stack.
