Lok Sabha Question No. 97 (STARRED), answered on 2017-02-08
Subject: Telecom Policy
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS
Asked by: JAGDAMBIKA PAL

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

## LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO.97 TO BE ANSWERED ON 8 TH  FEBRUARY, 2017

## TELECOM POLICY

- *97. SHRI JAGDAMBIKA PAL:

Will the Minister of COMMUNICATIONS be pleased to state:

- (a) the salient features of present telecom policy;
- (b) whether the Government has  assessed the policy and if so, the details thereof;
- (c) whether the Government proposes to bring a pan-India telecom policy;
- (d) if so, the details thereof and the reasons therefor; and
- (e) the steps taken/being taken in this regard?

## ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF STATE (IC) OF THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS & MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS (SHRI MANOJ SINHA)

- (a) to (e) A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.

Contd/elipsis2/-

## STATEMENT  TO  BE  LAID  ON  THE  TABLE  OF  THE  LOK  SABHA  IN  RESPECT  OF PARTS (a) TO (e) OF LOK  SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO.97 FOR 8 TH   FEBRUARY, 2017 REGARDING 'TELECOM POLICY'.

- (a) The vision of the National Telecom Policy-2012 (NTP-12) is to provide secure, reliable,  affordable  and  high  quality  converged  telecommunication  services  anytime, anywhere  for  an accelerated  inclusive  socio-economic  development.  The  salient features of NTP-12 are placed at Annexure-I.
- (b) The  provisions  of  NTP-12  are  at  various  stages  of  implementation  with timelines spread up to 2020.
- (c) to (e) The existing National Telecom Policy is a pan-India policy and as such there is no proposal to bring a new pan-India telecom policy in this financial year.

Contd/elipsis/elipsis.3/-

## SALIENT FEATURES OF NATIONAL TELECOM POLICY

1. Achieve One Nation - Full Mobile Number Portability and work towards One Nation - Free Roaming.
2. Strive to create One Nation - one License across services and service areas.
3. Simplify  the  licensing  framework  to  further  extend  converged  high  quality  services  across  the  nation including rural and remote areas. This will not cover content regulation.
4. Put  in  place  a  simplified  Merger  and    Acquisition  regime  in  teleecom  service  sector  while  ensuring adequate competition.
5. Mandate  an  ecosystem  to  ensure  setting  up  of  a  common  platform  for  interconnection  of  various networks for providing non-exclusive and non-discriminatory access.
6. Increase  rural  teledensity  to  70  by  the  year  2017  and  100  by  the  year  2020,  recognising  telecom, including  broadband  connectivity  as  a  basic  necessity  like  education  and  health  and  work  towards 'Right to Broadband' .
7. Provision of affordable and reliable broadband-on-demand by the year 2015 and to achieve 175 million broadband  connections  by  the  year  2017  and  600  million  by  the  year  2020  at  minimum  2  Mbps download speed and making available higher speeds of at least 100 Mbps on demand.
8. Provision  of  high  speed  and  high  quality  broadband  access  to  all  village  panchayats  through  a combination of technologies by the year 2014 and progressively to all villages and habitations by 2020.
9. Promote the ecosystem for design, Research and Development, IPR creation, testing, standardization and manufacturing i.e. complete value chain for domestic production of telecommunication equipment to meet Indian telecom sector demand
10. Provide preference to domestically manufactured telecommunication products, in procurement of those telecommunication  products  which  have  security  implications  for  the  country  and  in  Government procurement for its own use, consistent with our World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments
11. Address the Right of Way (RoW) issues in setting up of telecom infrastructure.
12. Ensure  adequate  availability  of  spectrum  and  its  allocation  in  a  transparent  manner  through  market related processes. Make available additional 300 MHz spectrum for IMT services by the year 2017 and another 200 MHz by 2020.
13. Achieve  substantial  transition  to  new  Internet  Protocol  (IPv  6)  in  the  country  in  a  phased  and  time bound manner by 2020 and encourage an ecosystem for provision of a significantly large bouquet of services on IP platform.
14.  To facilitate the role of new technologies in furthering public welfare and  enhanced customer choices through affordable access and efficient service delivery. The emergence of new service formats such as  Machine-to-Machine  (M2M)  communications(e.g.  remotely  operated  irrigation  pumps,  smart  grid etc.) represent tremendous opportunities, especially as their roll-out becomes more widespread.'
15. To assess the manpower requirement at different skill and expertise level by partnering with National Skill  Development  Council  and  industry  to  identify  the  relevant  needs  of  the  sector  and  prepare  a roadmap.

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## ANNEXURE-I