India, on the verge of a new telecom revolution, can lead the world in 6G: Jyotiraditya Scindia

Speaking to Kiran Rathee and Romit Guha, Scindia, also the minister for development of the north-eastern region (DoNER), said the government has not set a timeline for selling its stake in Vodafone Idea But he is also not worried about the day-to-day operations of the company, which is run by professionals. He added that a competitive industry that offers quality choice and services to consumers, and boosts local manufacturing and R&D, are some of his key priorities. Edited excerpts:

What are your top priorities for the telecommunications sector?
Today, telecommunications drives the economic fortunes of nations. Interconnectivity, communication and access to information are the factors that bring about a paradigm shift in people’s ability to succeed, and in the last decade, India has made a leap forward on many fronts. The total number of mobile connections has grown from 900 million to 1.16 billion subscribers, representing a penetration of almost 85%. As for the Internet, we have gone from 200 million to 950 million. As for tariffs, there has been a 94% drop.

What used to cost 0.51 paisa per minute has come down to 0.03. The data cost per 1GB has gone from Rs 287 to Rs 9. The change has been monumental. Having said that, we are on the cusp of a new revolution. India, which was a follower in 3G, was moving ahead in 4G and 5G, and today has the capability to lead the world in 6G. In terms of my own agenda, I have five or six pillars. The first is 4G saturation across the country. We still have close to 20,000-22,000 towers that need to be installed in the remaining 1,000 villages in India. The towers will be installed by TSPs (telecom service providers), the private sector and BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam.). That is something I am monitoring on a daily basis. The second is the rollout of the 4G stack for BSNL.

What is remarkable is that India is the third or fourth country in the world to have its own 4G technology, which means it has its own radio access network and its own data centres. It is important that the rollout is done efficiently. We are planning to install around 100,000 base transceiver stations (BTS) by the middle of next year. So far, we have installed around 22,500. It will be a big leap for India, not only in terms of manufacturing technology, but it will also create a foreign exchange reserve because we will no longer have to import that technology.

The third is to look at the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom equipment manufacturing, which is proving successful. We have Rs 4,000 crore of capital expenditure, almost Rs 50,000 crore of production, Rs 10,000 crore of exports. And to boost that, we are looking at design elements for that PLI scheme and increasing the incentive for design. The fourth is to look at quality of service (QoS) and the whole customer-side issue, which is paramount because this ministry is a consumer-facing ministry. We have to ensure that their quality of services is excellent across all TSPs, to ensure that the problem of their spam calls/fraudulent calls is minimised. The fifth is to increase R&D in telecom. We are looking at 5G labs, promoting new start-ups, etc. We have to ensure that indigenous manufacturing of equipment also happens.

What is the update regarding the Telecommunications Law and its various regulations?
We notified the law in June, so we have a deadline of 180 days to publish 23 sections and 35 rules.

Are OTT (over-the-top) players included in the broad definition of telecommunications in the new Telecommunications Law?
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is looking into that and I don’t think it is right for me to comment at this point.

Telecom operators are pushing for OTT services to be included in the definition of telecoms and are demanding a fair distribution of revenues from OTT services. How do you see this?
It is part of the issues that the advisory groups are addressing, so let them (the telecom companies) raise it with me when we discuss it. I have created six advisory groups and the stakeholders have defined the agenda.

The government is now the largest shareholder in Vodafone Idea. Is the worst over for the telecoms company?
Vodafone Idea is run by a team of professionals. I don’t want to venture into how the management is going or what the results are. The only thing that worries me as a telecom minister is that I have to have multiple players in my market. I have four players in my market. They all have a healthy market share and I have to make sure that all four are strong, to offer customers a choice. For me, having a level playing field with multiple players is a priority. At the end of the day, I have to make sure that my customers are properly served, both from a price point of view, where we are the cheapest in the world today, and from a quality point of view. That is my mandate.

Is there a deadline for the government to maintain its stake in Vodafone Idea?
There is no schedule

Spam calls are becoming more and more frequent and there is a feeling that the authorities are always one step behind in tackling this menace. What is your opinion on this?
You must understand that technology brings huge dividends, but there are always people who use it to achieve their ends and I am not deliberately using the word ‘misuse’. In the case of fraud, technology is misused. The regulator has taken very tough measures to tackle the problem. Nearly 1.8 million phones have been disconnected in the last 3-4 months. I am very clear that I cannot allow any customer who is not willing to receive such calls to receive such calls.

Government seems to be silent on BharatNet…
We have modified the BharatNet project with an outlay of ₹1.39 lakh crore, which will complete those gram panchayats that were not part of BharatNet 1 and BharatNet 2. The first two phases have covered 220,000 gram panchayats, and the remaining 40,000 panchayats will be covered under the modified project.