Faculties of top Indian institutes IIT, IIM and IISc have written to Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal to expeditiously operationalise funds, proposed to be around Rs 17,500 crore, for developing domestic capabilities and reduce dependence on imports in the sector.
"We have written to the Telecom Minister and DoT for release of telecom funds. The next Parliament session is expected to start soon and the next government can take up this issue on priority basis," the Telecom Centers of Excellence Director J Jena said.
The Telecom Centers of Excellence is public-private initiative for capacity building to sustain telecom growth. Representatives of these top institutes are a part of the organisation.
The letter, signed by 35 professors belonging to Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Management and Indian Institute of Sciences, said government should without any delay operationalise the Telecom Manufacturing Promotion Fund (TMPF), the Telecom Research and Development Fund (TRDF) and the Telecom Entrepreneurship Development Fund (TEDF).
The National Telecom Policy 2012 had envisaged these funds for giving an impetus to domestic telecom manufacturing ecosystem.
"The Government had intent to provide these funds under 12th Plan. Two years have passed and these funds are still stuck in Planning Commission. We have already missed 4G, people have started working on 5G and we should not miss that bus," Jena said.
The TMPF, meant for promoting manufacturing in India is proposed to be around Rs 10,000 crore. TRDF, for promoting research and development as well creation of Indian Intellectual Property Rights was to around Rs 5,000 crore and TEDF for promoting start-ups around Rs 2,500 crore.
The letter said that demand for telecom equipment in 2012-13 was close to Rs 75,000 crore and it is expected to grow more than Rs 1,70,000 by 2019-20. At present, 70 per cent of telecom equipment need is met through imports leading to high outflow of foreign exchanges.
"Imported telecom equipment can pose big security threat. Today, telecom networks are considered as strategic infrastructure. Equipment deployed in such networks could have potential malware in it, which could even be triggered from outside India. This could seriously jeopardize national security," the letter said
In 2013, about 150 million cell phones were imported at a total value of nearly Rs 30,000 crores.
It added that even in even in cases where some equipment is manufactured or developed in India, the components and devices are almost always 100 per cent imported and Indian IPR embedded in equipments are marginal.
"However, there are very few Indian companies that are able to tap this talent to develop their own products and IPR. We do not have enough start-ups that focus on products, even though there is large demand for products in India," the letter said.
Faculties asked the government to take immediate steps to operationalise TRDF, TEDF and TMPF as besides making India self-reliant in telecom technology for commercial and national strategic use, it will help country to become a global technology player.
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