The telecom sector has the potential to play a tremendous role in bringing about inclusive growth In the country as it marches onwards to become, as predicted by many international organizations, the world’s biggest economic power.
According to Dr JS Sarma, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), “digital dividend” enjoyed by India, in addition to the demographic dividend of a large work force, was a strong factor in its favour. “We know how easily Indians take to technology,” he said, adding that this was seen first in Green Revolution and now in telecom and digital technology.
Dr Sarma was speaking at the valedictory session of National Telecom Summit 2011 organised by Confederation of India Industry (CII) here today.
Stressing upon the role of ICT, Dr Sarma said the two requirements in this regard were an infrastructure and an ability to use this infrastructure. Here, the need was for both wireline and wireless infrastructure, he added. Speaking about the remarkable growth registered by telecom sector, he said if the incentives given by TRAI for rural outreach were accepted, it would be even faster.
Speaking about the growing data processing capacity in this sector, he said it would not be surprising if in a couple of years one saw people carrying phones with technology that astronauts in Apollo used in the mission to moon.
He saw need for both wireless and wireline growth going hand n hand for the spectrum is finite. Bringing in the topic of inclusion here, Dr Sarma telecom sector could help in inclusive growth by helping make quality of life in rural areas same as that enjoyed by people in cities. This, he said could be done by extending education, health care and financial inclusion to rural areas. In this regard, he said ICT and mobiule phone applications could b developed to play a crucial role in extension of credit facility to farmers.
Chairman of CII National Committee on Telecom and Broadband, Kiran Karnik, rounding up the day’s discussion, noted that the industry and TRAI had meaningful exchanges regularly and the government body was open to inputs and ideas. Summing up the day’s proceedings, Mr Karnik observed that the discussions were wideranging and meaningful, giving rise to several ideas and thoughts.
He said Dr Sarma had given a broad vision of what the telecom sector can and should do. He said what the industry could truly pride itself in was that “one thing that binds us is electronic connectivity”. He said a thing that was not to be seen 15 years ago was now to be seen in everybody’s hands and mobile phones were more common than either bicycles or sewing machines.
Referring to extension of mobile phone and ICT to villages and panchayats, Mr Karnik said it was an idea that deserved to be tried out. “I see it as building a highway. One does not go into who is going to use and how. It is there for the people to make use of,” he said.