Convergence law may take shape this year

Vandana Gombar in New Delhi

Will the Convergence Bill become an Act in 2002? It is highly likely given the pace at which the parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology is working on it. The “clause by clause” consideration of the bill by the committee is scheduled to begin on January 8, just after the first week of the year is out.

If things go according to plan, the committee, headed by Somnath Chatterjee, should be ready with its report by the time of the budget session, scheduled to begin sometime in the second half of February, sources said.

The convergence bill, recognising the coming together of voice, video and data, aims to set up a single super-regulator for the telecom, Internet and broadcasting sectors. To be called the Communications Commission of India (CCI), the current Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is proposed to be subsumed in the new CCI.

The bill also seeks to change the licensing regime and limit the number of license categories to five — network infrastructure facilities, networking services, network application services, content application services and value-added network application services. It is still not clear how the existing licencees will be accommodated in the new regime.

The IT standing committee has over 10 new faces from January 1, though there are still 7 vacancies.

The standing committee, at its January 8 meeting, will also decide the fate of the draft report on allowing foreign investment in print media. It may be recalled that the committee, in an earlier draft report, had ruled out allowing foreign investment in news and current affairs publications. On non-news and non-current affairs publications, a case-by-case approach was recommended.

“The committee’s members have changed post January 1. Now, they have to collectively decide whether to adopt the draft report...or rework it,” sources said.