The National Digital Communications Policy 2018
The National Digital Communications Policy, 2018 seeks to unlock the trans formative power of digital communications networks – to achieve the goal of
- 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
- Digital empowerment and well being of the people of India; and towards this end, attempts to outline a set of goals, initiatives, strategies and intended policy outcomes.
Key Objectives of National Digital Communications Policy (These objectives are to be achieved by 2022):
- Broadband for All
- Creating 4 Million additional jobs in the Digital Communications sector
- Enhancing the contribution of the Digital Communications sector to 8% of India’s GDP from ~ 6% 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
- Ensuring Digital Sovereignty.
Features of Policy : NDCP 2018 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 internet connectivity to all uncovered areas.
- Attract investments of US $100 billion in Digital Communications Sector.
- Train 1 million manpower for building New Age Skill.
- Expand Internet of the things(IOT) ecosystem to 5 billion connected devices.
- Establish comprehensive data protection regime for digital communications that safeguards privacy, autonomy and choice of individuals
- Facilitate India’s effective participation in global digital economy;
- Enforce accountability through appropriate institutional mechanisms to assure citizens of safe and
- Secure digital communications infrastructure and services.
Strategy :NDCP 2018 advocates
- Establish National Digital Grid by creating National Fibre Authority.
- Establish Common Service Ducts and utility corridors in all new city and highway road projects.
- Create collaborative institutional mechanism between Centre, States and Local Bodies for Common Rights of Way, standardization of costs and timelines;
- Remove barriers to approvals.
- Facilitate development of Open Access Next Generation Networks.
Thus it aims to provide universal broadband connectivity at 50 Mbps to every citizen; provide 1 Gbps connectivity to all Gram Panchayats of India by 2020 and 10 Gbps by 2022; ensure connectivity to all uncovered areas; attract investments of USD 100 Billion in the Digital Communications Sector; train 1 Million manpower for building New Age Skill; 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 and facilitates India’s effective participation in the global digital economy; and Enforce accountability through appropriate institutional mechanisms to assure citizens of safe and secure digital communications infrastructure and services.
Background:-
- The present world has entered the era of modern technological advancements in the Telecom Sector such as 5G, IoT, M2M etc., a need was being felt to introduce a ‘customer focused’ and ‘application driven’ policy for the Indian Telecom Sector which can form the main pillar of Digital India by addressing emerging opportunities for expanding not only the availability of Telecom services but also Telecom based services.
- Accordingly, 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.
Missions of National Digital Communication Policy-2018
In pursuit of accomplishing these objectives by year 2022, the National Digital Communications Policy, 2018 envisages three Missions:
1.Connect India: Creating Robust Digital Communications Infrastructure
- To promote Broadband for All as a tool for socio-economic development,While ensuring service quality and environmental sustainability.
2.Propel India: Enabling Next Generation Technologies and Services through Investments, Innovation and IPR generation. To harness the power of emerging digital technologies, including 5G, AI, IoT, Cloud and Big Data to enable provision of future ready products and services; and to catalyse the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) by promoting Investments, Innovation and IPR.
3.Secure India: Ensuring Sovereignty, Safety and Security of Digital Communications
- To secure the interests of citizens and safeguard the digital sovereignty of India with a focus on ensuring individual autonomy and choice, data ownership, privacy and security; while recognizing data as a crucial economic resource.
Topic: GS-2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.