The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology has pulled up the Centre for suspending telecom services and internet.

Quoting the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the panel, headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, said the telecom operators lose ₹2.45 crore per hour in every circle area where there is a shutdown or throttling. The panel also noted that other businesses which rely on the internet could lose up to 50 per cent of this amount. Citing newspaper reports, the panel said the country lost $2.8 billion in 2020 to internet shutdowns.

The panel said the suspension of telecom services/internet greatly affects the local economy, healthcare services, freedom of press and education. It criticised the Telecom Ministry for not conducting impact assessment study on the matter. The panel was also informed that that no assessment is available with the Ministry of of Home Affairs too.

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A draft report of the panel is learnt to have told the Home Ministry that communal riots took place during pre-internet era also and enquired if any study has been conducted by by the Centre to establish the correlation between internet and riots.

“Both DoT and MHA have informed us that they have not conducted any study to establish the link between internet shutdown and communal riots,” a member in the panel said.

The Centre uses Section 4 of Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 and Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency & Public Safety) Rules, 2017, which was amended without consulting any stakeholders, to ban internet.

Fiat to States

The panel also asked the States for the correct number of internet shutdowns in the country in the recent past. The panel is also learnt to have recommend that a thorough study should be conducted by the DoT/MHA to assess the impact of internet shutdown on economy and also find out its effectiveness in dealing with public emergency and public safety.

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“Shutting down of Internet in this digital era is both anachronistic and acting as a bulwark against economic development and democratic rights of the people. The Committee desire that internet shutdowns should not be taken too frequently as matter of recourse since internet is indispensable to ordinary citizens in their daily lives, and vital for such matters as examination enrolment, tourism, and online enterprise,” the member said.

‘Look for other options’

The Committee asked the governments to see if it is technically possible to shut down only those services in areas likely to be used by terrorist/anti-social elements rather than shutting down internet as a whole.

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“We were told that services hosted on cloud are difficult to ban selectively since they operate from multiple locations in multiple countries and continuously shift from one service to the other. However, websites operating through fixed URLS can be banned. They said Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram etc. are basically categorised as over-the-top telecom services. These OTT services are riding over the existing telecom service provider’s network,” the member said and added that the panel has asked the DoT to explore the option of banning of selective services, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, instead of banning the internet as a whole.

“This will allow financial services, health, education and various other services to continue to operate for business as usual thereby minimising inconvenience and suffering to the general public and also help in controlling spreading of misinformation during unrest,” he added.

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