India’s union cabinet has approved the National Digital Communications Policy-2018 (NDCP-2018) and re-designation of the Telecom Commission as the ‘Digital Communications Commission’ on Wednesday (26).
With the new policy, the government aims to attract investment worth £75.97 billion, train one million manpower for new age skill, and expand the IoT ecosystem to five billion connected devices in the telecom sector.
The NDCP-2018 envisions supporting India’s transition to a digitally empowered economy and society by fulfilling the information and communication needs of citizens and enterprises by the establishment of a ubiquitous, resilient and affordable digital communications infrastructure and services, the Indian government said.
The key objectives of the policy are - provisioning of broadband for all, creating four million additional jobs in the digital communications sector, enhancing the contribution of the digital communications sector to eight per cent of India’s GDP from six per cent in 2017.
The policy also aims to propel India to the top 50 nations in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) development index of International Telecommunication Union (ITU) from 134 in recorded in 2017.
The new policy also has objectives in enhancing India’s contribution to global value chains and ensuring digital sovereignty. These objectives are expected to be achieved by 2022, India’s Ministry of Communications said in a statement.
The policy, inter-alia, aims to provide universal broadband connectivity at 50Mbps to every citizen, provide 1 Gbps connectivity to all Gram Panchayats (village councils) of the country by 2020 and 10 Gbps by 2022.
The policy further advocates for the establishment of a National Digital Grid by creating a National Fibre Authority, establishing common service ducts and utility corridors in all new cities and highway road projects.
The new National Digital Communications Policy-2018 has been formulated, in place of the existing National Telecom Policy-2012, to cater to the modern needs of the digital communications sector of India.
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