New Delhi, Sep 26 (UNI) The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved the National Digital Communications Policy-2018 (NDCP-2018) and re-designation of the Telecom Commission as the "Digital Communications Commission”.
Addressing a press conference after the Cabinet meeting, Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Manoj Sinha said the policy aims to provide universal broadband connectivity at 50 Mbps to every citizen; provide 1 Gbps connectivity to all Gram Panchayats by 2020 and 10 Gbps by 2022; ensure connectivity to all uncovered areas; attract investments of USD 100 billion in the Digital Communications Sector and train one million manpower for building New Age Skill.
The policy also envisages to expand IoT ecosystem to 5 billion connected devices; establish a comprehensive data protection regime for digital communications that safeguards the privacy, autonomy and choice of individuals, facilitate India's effective participation in the global digital economy; enforce accountability through appropriate institutional mechanisms to assure citizens of safe and secure digital communications infrastructure and services.
The NDCP-2018 envisions supporting India's transition to a digitally empowered economy and society by fulfilling the information and communications needs of citizens and enterprises by establishment of a ubiquitous, resilient and affordable digital communications infrastructure and services.
The ‘Customer focused’ and ‘application driven’ NDCP-2018 will lead to new ideas and innovations, after the launch of advanced technology such as 5G, IOT, M2M, etc which shall govern the telecom sector of India.
The key objectives of the policy include Broadband for all; Creating four million additional jobs in the Digital Communications sector; enhancing the contribution of the Digital Communications sector to 8 per cent of India's GDP from - 6 per cent in 2017; propelling India to the Top 50 Nations in the ICT Development Index of ITU from 134 in 2017; enhancing India's contribution to Global Value Chains and ensuring Digital Sovereignty.
These objectives are to be achieved by 2022.
The new National Digital Communications Policy - 2018 has been formulated, in place of the existing National Telecom Policy-2012, to cater to the modern needs of the digital communications sector of India.
UNI RSA ADG 1707