The Union Cabinet has approved the National Digital Communications Policy-2018 (NDCP-2018) and the re-designation of the Telecom Commission as the ‘Digital Communications Commission’. The new policy, which replaces the National Telecom Policy 2012, sets targets to be achieved by 2022.

Since technologies and commercial businesses have undergone a massive change since 2012, there was a need for a new telecom policy, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters after a Cabinet meeting here on Wednesday.

Rural reach

An official statement said the policy aims to provide universal broadband connectivity at 50 Mbps to every citizen and 1 Gbps connectivity to all gram panchayats by 2020. By 2022, this will go up to 10 Gbps.

The policy also proposes establishing a comprehensive data protection regime for digital communications that safeguards the privacy, autonomy and choice of individuals.

“This policy envisages the contribution of the telecom sector to the GDP will rise from 6 per cent to 8 per cent. It proposes broadband connectivity to 50 per cent of India’s households. The expected investments due to the initiatives announced in the policy are $100 billion,” said Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Communications, Manoj Sinha. One of the far-reaching proposals in the policy is the shift towards licensing reforms and the move away from focusing on revenue generation.

Commenting on the move, Harsh Walia, Associate Partner at Khaitan & Co, said: “The indicated reforms to the licence framework seem to suggest that DoT looks to shed its image of a revenue-monger to a business-facilitator as charges, taxes and levies may be rationalised.

“In particular, spectrum usage charges may now only reflect administrative costs. This will be a breath of fresh air for the industry, whenever implemented.”

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