Electronics and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday said the government will not rush the process of framing rules for the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, but will follow an extensive consultation process.
The minister said the drafting of rules is in an advanced stage and the government will soon start industry consultations for it. The comments from Vaishnaw assume significance as though the DPDP Act came into existence in August last year, its implementation by the data fiduciaries was dependent on the rules. Industry stakeholders had raised concerns over exemptions to the government in the Act, transition period for startups and other companies to implement the Act, composition of the data protection board, and consent mechanism for dealing with children data, among other issues.
“Whatever extensive consultation is required for rule-making, we will do that, similar to the way we did for the telecom Act and DPDP Act,” Vaishnaw told reporters. He, however, did not give any timeline.
Simultaneously, the government is working on creating a digital-by-design platform for implementation of the Act in a digital form. The platform will be created by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Digital India Corporation (DIC).
Asked about the framework of the Digital India Bill, Vaishnaw said, “The thought process of creating a new digital framework stays absolutely intact. The horizontals, which are the telecom Act, the DPDP Act, and the Digital India Act, that structure remains intact.”
A focus on electronics manufacturing by developing the components ecosystem is also on the government’s agenda. “We will have a clear picture on the component manufacturing plans in the next three-four months,” Vaishnaw said, adding that the country is heading in a direction of becoming a big electronics manufacturer.
Currently, India has an electronics manufacturing industry of about $130 billion, with an employment generation of about 2 million. “During this term, I can see us achieving a 5-million employment number with about $250-billion manufacturing,” Vaishnaw said.
The minister said the approach is to become an export hub, starting with smartphones. In other categories such as laptops and servers, he said the companies approved under the IT hardware production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme have already started domestic production.
