In line with the government?s efforts to boost the domestic manufacturing of telecom equipment, the working group on the telecom sector for the 12th Five-Year Plan has recommended setting up of a R10,000-crore Telecom Promotion Fund to provide soft loans to Indian manufacturers of these equipment and also the operators who deploy them.
The proposal comes in the backdrop of the government?s announcement that New Telecom Policy (NTP), which is expected to be announced by the middle of this year, aims at meeting 80% of the country?s telecom equipment requirement through domestic production by 2020.
Telecom minister Kapil Sibal has reiterated that the thrust of the NTP would be to give preferential access to Indian manufacturers. ?We are a software power and we now hope to become a hardware power as well,? Sibal had said, while unveiling the draft policy last year.
Along with soft loans, the working group has also proposed an entrepreneurship fund on the lines of a venture capital fund, which would attract young entrepreneurs to venture into start-ups and promote Indian products abroad.
Making recommendations on a host of issues, the working group has identified the telecom sector as a laggard when it comes to presence in the international telecom standards. ?There is a clear need to promote Indian interests, service providers? requirements and Indian IPR into international standards. This will also help create an ecosystem for telecom equipment manufacturing in India which today is not a viable business proposition,? the group highlighted.
As a result, the working group chaired by the department of telecommunications secretary R Chandrashekhar, has recommended that the DoT should administer a R5,000 crore Telecom Research Development Fund, which will go into international standards and for development of high-end products for future telecom systems and services. The report categorically mentions that this fund must not support incremental research innovations.
