The Indian telecom regulator on 2 February released the recommendations for

the National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2018, in which it has set a target to attract an

investment of $100 billion in communication by 2022 and planned to leapfrog the
country into the top 50 nations in the ICT Development Index released by
International Telecommunication Union every year. The industry welcomes it.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Image: TRAI

It also aims to create 2 million additional jobs in the ICT sector by 2022.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said the objective of the NTP 2018
would be to enable access at affordable prices for wireless broadband services,
including through satellite to 90 percent population by 2022.

The TRAI formulated the recommendations being requested by Department of

Telecommunications to provide policy inputs.

The government aims to finalise the NTP 2018 by March end.

The TRAI in its recommendations said the objective of the policy would also be to
provide 1 Gbps data connectivity to all Gram Panchayats to enable wireless
broadband services to inhabitants by 2022.

The TRAI envisions to become net become net positive in international trade of
communication systems and services by 2022.

The sector regulator aims to deploy 2 million public WLAN including Wi-Fi hotspots
in the country by 2020 and 5 million by 2022.

It said the objective is to enable access for connecting to 1 billion Internet of

Things/Machine-to-Machine sensors/devices by 2020 and 5 million by 2022.

Setting up of an an ombudsman based consumer grievance redressal mechanism by

end of 2018 and to establish online centralised platform for provision of Right of Way
permissions for single window clearance by 2019 are some other objectives laid out
by the TRAI.
It said the policy should simplify licensing and regulatory frameworks, and rationalise
taxes, levies and related compliances and payments by 2019.

"We strong'y support the TRAI's recommendations on simplifying the licensing and
regulatory frameworks and rationalising taxes, levies and related compliance by
2019 and we expect that the same would be done at the earliest, in this year itself.
We hope that the simplification of compliance includes reduction in the multiple
audits, which will save the cost and effort" of the operators," said Rajan S. Mathews,
Director General, Cellular Operators' Association of India.

"While, we support these Objectives and the Strategies outlined in the

Recommendations, we hope that the level playing field and regulatory equality would
be maintained among various players," he added.

"To put in place a flexible, robust data protection regime powered by a strong
encryption policy by 2019 and to establish a policy framework for facilitating setting
up of data centres by 2019," the TRAI added.