Cabinet approves National Digital Communications Policy-2018

Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved National Digital Communications Policy-2018 (NDCP 2018). It also has re-designated Telecom Commission as Digital Communications Commission. It replaces existing National Telecom Policy-2012 to cater to the modern needs of the digital communications sector of India.

National Digital Communications Policy-2018 (NDCP 2018)

It envisions supporting India’s transition to digitally empowered economy and society by fulfilling information and communications needs of citizens and enterprises. It strives to achieve this by establishing ubiquitous, resilient and affordable digital communications infrastructure and services. It is customer focused and application driven. It will help lead to new ideas and innovations after launch of advanced technology such as 5G, IOT, M2M, etc. which shall India’s govern telecom sector

Key Objectives

• Broadband for all.
• Creating four million additional jobs in Digital Communications sector.
• Enhancing contribution of Digital Communications sector to 8% of India’s GDP from ~ 6% in 2017.
• Propelling India to Top 50 Nations in ICT Development Index of ITU from 134 in 2017.
• Enhancing India’s contribution to Global Value Chains and
• Ensuring Digital Sovereignty.

These objectives are to be achieved by 2022.
Features
NDCP 2018 aims to

• Provide universal broadband connectivity at 50 Mbps to every citizen.
• Provide 1 Gbps connectivity to all Gram Panchayats by 2020 and 10 Gbps by 2022.
• Ensure internet connectivity to all uncovered areas.
• Attract investments of US $100 billion in Digital Communications Sector.
• Train 1 million manpower for building New Age Skill.
• Expand IoT ecosystem to 5 billion connected devices.
• Establish comprehensive data protection regime for digital communications that safeguards privacy, autonomy and choice of individuals
• Facilitate India’s effective participation in global digital economy;
• Enforce accountability through appropriate institutional mechanisms to assure citizens of safe and
• Secure digital communications infrastructure and services.

Strategy
NDCP 2018 advocates

• Establish National Digital Grid by creating National Fibre Authority.
• Establish Common Service Ducts and utility corridors in all new city and highway road projects.
• Create collaborative institutional mechanism between Centre, States and Local Bodies for Common Rights of Way, standardization of costs and timelines;
• Remove barriers to approvals.
• Facilitate development of Open Access Next Generation Networks.

Background

As the present technological world has entered into era of modern technological advancements in Telecom Sector such as 5G, Internet of things (loT), Machine to machine (M2M) communication etc. So, need was being felt to introduce customer focused and application driven policy for Indian Telecom Sector. This policy main intention was to serve as main pillar of Digital India by addressing emerging opportunities for expanding not only availability of telecom services but also telecom based services. Accordingly, new National Digital Communications Policy – 2018 has been formulated.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2018