Roundtable Conference on Manufacturing and R&D held by DoT Measures to Promote Indigenous Manufacturing of Telecom Equipments Discussed with Stakeholders Emphasis Laid on Creation of Indian IPR

Shri Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister for Communications & IT & Human Resource Development held a Roundtable Conference on Manufacturing and Research & Development in Telecom & Electronics sector with various stakeholders to deliberate upon the measures to promote indigenous manufacturing of telecom & electronic equipments. 

Opening the deliberations, Shri Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister of Communications & IT said that telecommunication infrastructure is a critical-asset of any country and it is a key growth enabler. It is the delivery vehicle for a large number of IT and IT-enabled services including health-care, education, financial services, e-governance etc. both to the urban as well as rural masses. He said that while the growth of telecommunications in India has been rapid; the domestic telecom equipment manufacturing segment has not been able to keep pace with the same.  This forces the telecom operators to import most of the telecom equipment required for their networks. 

He flagged various issues for discussions towards this end. These included:

• Preferential market access for domestically manufactured products (comprising both Indian Products, Telecom products in which product Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) resides in India and Indian Manufactured Products with IPR outside India).

• Minimum Value addition for qualifying as domestic products. Incentives to Telecom Service Providers for using domestic products.

• Fiscal incentives to manufacturers for manufacturing Indian Products and Indian Manufactured Products.

• Creation of fund for encouraging R&D.

• Promoting component manufacturing in the country. 

• Creation of eco system for design, development and manufacturing including testing and standardisation.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has organised this Roundtable Conference with the Electronic, Telecom Equipment and component manufacturers and their respective associations to deliberate upon the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommendations of April 12, 2011 on Telecom Equipment Manufacturing Policy. These recommendations require that the domestic manufactured products are proposed to be given preferential market access like market pull, subsidy for equity capital and working capital, fiscal incentives to telecom service providers as well as to manufacturers and encouragement for exports. TRAI has also proposed special measures for promotion of R&D and creation of IPRs and setting up of semiconductor wafer fabrication units etc. The contours of policy for preferential market access for domestic producers of electronic goods in government and government controlled procurement also came up for discussion under the preferential market access. 30 per cent of the said procurement is proposed to be made available to domestically produced electronic goods including the telecom equipment.  This is subject to meeting the price and technical specifications by such domestic producers. It was also indicated that goods manufactured with Indian IP will have inter-se preference over goods with IP registered outside India.  

  

Secretary, Department of Telecom underlined that promotion of manufacturing and R&D has to be taken up jointly as national agenda by the Government, Manufacturers as well as Telecom Service Providers and the role of the Government is to act as enabler to achieve these objectives. 

Summing up the deliberations which continued till late evening yesterday, the Minister said that:

• It is extremely important to have robust component manufacturing industry. Setting up of semiconductor wafer fabs is a step in that direction. The availability of the components would facilitate fulfilment of market access conditions by the service providers. 

• There is an immediate need to have standards for the equipment so that the quality of the product and the service does not suffer.

• There is a need for creating large enough fund which would support an Indian IPR generation as well as encourage and attract start-up in the sector, especially by attracting NRI talent from outside the country.

• There is need for fiscal incentive ensuring adequate credit flow to the sector so that the growth of the sector is not adversely affected. 

The Roundtable Conference was attended by Electronics Industries Association of India (ELCINA), India Semiconductor Association (ISA),  Manufacturer’s Association for IT ( MAIT),  Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association (TEMA),  Indian Cellular Association (ICA) as well as organisations associated in R&D like  C-DOT, Telecom Centres of Excellence (TCOEs), Professors from IITs to draw a roadmap for ensuring growth of domestically manufactured products. Telecom service providers and their associations like Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI), Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI), Association of Competitive Telecom Operators (ACTO) as well as industry association like FICCI, CII, ASSOCHAM also attended the Conference. 

Courtesy : PIB