Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reassured the telecom industry today that his government is fully committed to sustaining growth, creativity and enterprise in a “vitally important” sector of the country’s economy.
“I am aware of some concerns of the telecom industry regarding government policies in the telecom sector. I wish to reassure industry of the government’s full commitment to sustaining growth, creativity and enterprise in this vitally important sector of our economy,” the Indian PM said while inaugurating the India Telecom Summit, organized by the Department of Telecommunications and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Singh said that easy and fast flow of information in a rapidly growing and modernizing economy is important and went on to express satisfaction with the pace of growth in the Indian telecommunications sector during the past decade.
“We are today the fastest-growing telecom market in the world, with the addition of over 18 million subscribers every month. The penetration of wireless voice services has increased from about 2% in 2000 to about 72.1% in August 2011. Moreover, our telecom tariffs are among the lowest in the world,” he said. “All this has been possible due to our regulatory regimes, which have encouraged competition, as well as due to the innovation and enterprise of the private sector in our country.”
Regarding the government’s proposed National Optical Fibre Network, Singh said: “The cost of the initial phase of this scheme is estimated to be about Rs 20000 crore. An equal amount is also envisaged to be invested by the private sector to complement the National Optical Fibre Network infrastructure by providing access services to the individual users. The scheme is expected to generate a variety of benefits to our rural people, like better access to education, better access to health and provision for agricultural services.”
Singh also spoke about the recently announced draft National Telecom Policy 2011, which he said “will lay special emphasis on providing affordable and quality telecommunication services in rural and remote areas. I am sure that the policy will help us in achieving our goal of rapid growth, whose benefits are shared by each and every citizen.”
Singh also expressed concern over large imports of telecom equipment and stated that there is an urgent need to give impetus to the domestic research and development and manufacturing in the telecom sector, given the sector’s growth potential.
“A thriving telecom manufacturing industry would have a large positive impact on many other elements of the electronics manufacturing value chain, apart from generating other benefits like additional employment. I hope the deliberations in this conference will focus attention on how to promote R&D and manufacturing capabilities in the telecom sector in our country,” he added.
Deeming India’s telecom sector a success story, Singh said his government is committed to overseeing future success in the sector.
