India telecom regulator TRAI today released recommendations for the purpose of boosting local telecom equipment manufacturing.
The data on imports and exports of telecom equipment from Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics indicates that India has exported $1.201 billion worth of telecom equipment and $2.039 billion worth Electronic Instruments during 2017-18.
The import of telecom equipment was $21.847 billion and Electronic Instruments was $6.921 billion in 2017-18. Leading telecom equipment makers include Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, ZTE, among others.
TRAI said India should aim to achieve the objective of net zero imports of telecom equipment by 2022.
India should create Telecom Research and Development Fund (TRDF), with initial corpus of Rs 1,000 crore for promoting research, innovation, standardization, design, testing, certification and manufacturing indigenous telecom equipment.
In addition, India should set up Telecom Entrepreneurial Promotion Fund and Telecom Manufacturing Promotion Fund to boost local manufacturing of telecom equipment.
TEC should be made responsible for regulation and accreditation of telecom products testing and certification agencies in the country. Mandatory testing and certification of the telecom equipments in the country should be started at the earliest.
The Government should incentivize setting up of such facilities by private entities expedite setting up of testing and infrastructure facilities in the country. These facilities should be accredited by the TEC.
India should suggest suitable level of tariffs on import of telecom products, which are not covered under ITA, for immediate push to development of indigenous telecom equipment manufacturing industry.
There should be incentives to local design and manufacturing of telecom products not included in ITA-1. India should encourage manufacturing of the telecom products covered under the provisions of ITA-1 once the eco-system for design and manufacturing of such telecom equipments in the country matures.
India should set up Telecom Product Development Clusters (TPDC) within the Electronic Manufacturing Clusters (EMC). The Government should extend suitable incentives to the TPDCs to attract talent and investments into these clusters.
India should offer incentives to local System Integrators like TCIL, ITI and other private entities to promote deployment of indigenous products in the telecom networks.
India should offer incentives to telecom service providers for deploying local telecom products, beyond the quantities to be mandated under the PMA.
DoT should immediately review its PMA policy, issued in October 2012, so that the products specified under the policy as well as the norms of the value addition specified in the policy can be aligned with the present day’s local market realities.
PMA policy should be applicable for all public telecom networks to address the national security concerns.
