The Telecom sector has witnessed
exponential growth, especially in the wireless segment, in the last few years.
With 937.70 million telephone connections at the end of September 2012, the
Indian telecom network is the second largest in the world, only after China.
Tele-density, which shows the number of telephones per 100 population in the
country, was 77.04% at the end of September 2012.
The number of internet subscribers
increased from 22.39 million (including 13.35 million broadband subscribers) to
23.01 million (including 14.57 million broadband subscribers) during the period
from January to June 2012. At the end of September 2012, there were 15.08
million broadband subscribers in the country.
Telecom has evolved as a basic
infrastructure like electricity, roads, water etc. and has also emerged as one
of the critical components of economic growth required for overall socio
economic development of the country. A study conducted recently has found that,
in India, 10% increase in internet subscribers delivers, on an average, 1.08%
increase in GDP. In the 10 states which had higher penetration of Internet, the
increase in growth was higher at 2.36% on a average, for 10% increase in
Internet penetration. In the year 2009-10, these 10 states, referred to as
‘relatively developed States’ had internet penetration rate of 2.76% compared to
the set of 9 ‘Developing’ States having average internet penetration rate of
only 0.61%. The study has also found that a 10% increase in mobile penetration
delivers, on an average, 1.5% increase in GDP.
National Telecom Policy – 2012
(NTP-2010)
The government approved National
Telecom Policy-2012 (NTP-2012) on 31st May 2012 which addresses
the Vision, Strategic direction and the various medium term and long term issues
related to telecom sector. The primary objective of NTP-2012 is maximizing
public good by making available affordable, reliable and secure
telecommunication and broadband services across the entire country. The main
thrust of the Policy is on the multiplier effect and transformational impact of
such services on the overall economy. It recognizes the role of such services in
furthering the national development agenda while enhancing equity and
inclusiveness. Availability of affordable and effective communications for the
citizens is at the core of the vision and goal of the NTP-2012. NTP-2012 also
recognizes the predominant role of the private sector in this field and the
consequent policy imperative of ensuring continued viability of service
providers in a competitive environment. Pursuant to NTP-2012, these principles
would guide decisions needed to strike a balance between the interests of
users/consumers, service providers and government revenue.
Manufacturing of Telecom
Equipment
With the advent of next-generation
technologies and operators rolling out 3G and broadband wireless access
services, the demand for telecom equipment has increased. In an attempt to
capitalize on this opportunity, the government and policymakers are focusing on
developing the domestic manufacturing industry.
Despite significant growth of the telecom network and the subscriber base
over the last decade, the telecom manufacturing sector has not shown
corresponding increase.
The NTP-2012, inter-alia, has
following objectives on promoting Telecom Equipment Manufacturing:
·
Create a
corpus to promote indigenous R&D, IPR creation, entrepreneurship,
manufacturing, commercialization and deployment of state-of-the-art telecom
products and services during the 12th five year plan period.
·
Promote
the ecosystem for design, Research and Development, IPR creation, testing,
standardization and manufacturing i.e complete value chain for domestic
production of telecommunication equipment to meet Indian telecom sector demand
to the extent of 60% and 80% with a minimum value addition of 45% and 65% by the
year 2017 and 2020 respectively.
·
Provide
preference to domestically manufactured telecommunication products, in
procurement of those telecommunication products, which have security
implications for the country and in Government procurement for its own use,
consistent with our World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments.
Auction of
Spectrum
Auction of Spectrum in 1800MHz band
that commenced on 12.11.12 has been completed.
Five companies participated in auction.
National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN)
project
·
NOFN
Project is envisaged as a Centre-State joint effort. State governments are
expected to contribute by way of not levying any RoW charges. This requires
suitable tri-partite MoU to be signed by GOI, state governments & BBNL.
·
Tri-partite MoU has been signed on
26.10.2012 with 13 states and 3 Union Territories. A total of about 1,40,727
Gram Panchayats will get covered by Optical Fiber Network in these States and
UTs.
·
Three
Pilot Projects have been completed to cover all Gram Panchayats of Arain Block
in Ajmer District (Rajasthan), Panisagar Block in North Tripura District
(Tripura), Paravada Block in Vishakhapatanam District (A.P.). As on 15.10.2012,
each of the 58 Gram Panchayats in these three Pilot Project Blocks have provided
with 100 Mbps bandwidth.
·
Survey
work for ‘laying of incremental OFC’ has commenced based on GIS data made
available by NIC.
Universal Service Obligation Fund
(USOF)
Various initiatives have been taken
by DoT to cover the uncovered rural and remote areas of the country, with the
support from USO fund. The achievements are listed below:
·
424
Village Public Telephones (VPTs) have been provided during the year 2012 till
October 2012. at the end of October 2012, 5.80 lakh (97.76%) villages were
covered with VPTs.
·
As on
31.10.2012, 53452 VPTs out of the 62443 i.e. 85.60% VPTs have been provide under
VPTs in newly identified uncovered villages as per Census
2001.
·
14 Mobile
Towers and 209 Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) have been commissioned by
Infrastructure Providers and Universal Service Providers respectively under the
Shared Mobile Infrastructure Scheme, during the year 2012 till October 2012.
Under this scheme, 7310, (99.42%) towers were set up by the end of October 2012.
·
52,628
wire-line broadband connections and 3,347 kiosks have been set up in rural and
remote areas under the scheme, during the year 2012 till October 2012 under the
Rural Broadband Scheme for expanding provision of Wireline Broadband
Connectivity up to village level.
·
A subsidy
of Rs 330.13 crore has been disbursed through USOF during the year 2012 till
31.10.2012, A total fund of Rs 47035.33 crore has been collected under USOF till
31.10.2012. A total of Rs 22438.17 crore of USO fund has been utilized till
31.10.2012 and available potential balance of Rs 24597 crore.
National Policy on Electronics (NPE)
2012
Unlike the IT and Telecom Sector,
wherein India has already been recognized as a global player, the performance of
our electronic hardware manufacturing has lagged on account of specific
challenges.
It is estimated that by the year 2020
our domestic demand for the Electronics products and systems (this includes
electronic products, hardware as well as components) would be USD 400
Billion as against domestic production of USD 100 billion only.
To focus on Electronics System Design
& Manufacturing (ESDM) in the country, a separate policy for the sector i.e.
the National Electronic Policy (NPE) 2012 was approved for implementation
by the Cabinet on 25.10.2012.
The NPE provides for a comprehensive
set of policy initiatives to revive the Electronics System Design and
Manufacturing (ESDM) sector in the country, which include,
broadly:
- Electronics
Manufacturing Clusters (EMC) Scheme
- Modified
Special Incentive Package (M-SIPS) Scheme
- Setting up
Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication Units
- Preference to
Domestically Manufactured Electronic Goods (Preferential Market
Access)
- Scheme for
mandatory registration of identified Electronic Products for meeting specified
safety standards
- Human Resource
Development initiatives in ESDM
National Policy on Information
Technology (NPIT) - 2012
The National Policy on Information
Technology 2012 was approved on 14th September 2012. The policy aims
to leverage Information & Communication Technology (ICT) to address the
country’s economic and developmental challenges. The policy inter alia envisages
creation of additional 10 million employments by 2020.
Under this Policy the objectives for
HR Development include:
·
Creation
of a pool of 10 million additional skilled manpower in
ICT.
- Make at least
one in every household e-literate.
- Enable access
of content and ICT applications to foster inclusive
development.
- Leverage ICT
for expanding the workforce and enabling life-long
learning.
- Produce 3000
PhDs annually in specialized areas by 2020.
National Policy on Skill
Development
Government of India had announced a
National Policy on Skill Development, which has set a target of skilling 500
million people by 2022 and a target of training 10 million persons in IECT
sector has been assigned to this Department.
In the year 2011-12, about 2.25 lakh
persons were trained by NIELIT and CDAC. The PM’s National Council on Skill
development has set a target of skilling 4.4 lakh persons for 2012-13. As of
July 2012, a total of 1,25,792 candidates have been trained/undergoing training
at NIELIT and CDAC.
Development of North-Eastern
Region
The Cabinet approved on
12th April 2012 the implementation of Deity’s scheme for development
of NER by enhancing training and education capacity in the information,
electronics and communication technology (IECT) area through the National
Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) (formerly DOEACC
Society). The total budget outlay for the project is Rs 388.68 crores spread
over a period of five years.
NIELIT has also initiated projects
for setting up Regional Institutes for e-Learning and Information Technolgy
(RIELIT) at Kohima (Nagaland), Agartala (Tripura): and NIELIT Centres at
Shillong (Meghalaya), Gangtok (Sikkim) and Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh).
Social Media and Citizen Engagement
Framework
The advent of internet and social
media has brought in paradigm change in which citizens engage with each other as
well as with government.
In order to help government
organizations engage more fruitfully with the various social media platforms,
Citizen Engagement Framework and Social Media Framework has been created and
notified on 8th September 2012.
Information Technology Investment
Regions (ITIRs)
Government of India has accorded
in-principle approval for setting up of three Information Technology Investment
Regions (ITIRs) in the States of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and
Odisha.
Setting up of National Internet
Registry (NIR)
Indian Registry for Internet Names
and Numbers (IRINN) under National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) was
recognized as the National Internet Registry during March, 2012 by Asia Pacific
Network Information Centre (APNIC).
National Supercomputing
Mission
High Performance Computing (HPC),
also known as Supercomputing, plays an important role in both scientific
advancement and economic competitiveness of a nation because it is a powerful
tool for accelerating a nation’s R&D programs by increasing the productivity
of scientists and researchers. It enables them to produce scientific and
industrial solutions faster, less expensively, and with higher quality than
traditional theory and experimentation alone.
The national mission on
supercomputing proposes to take an application centric approach for future HPC
activities in the nation.
Parallely, an initiative to upgrade
the computing power of the current PARAM Yuva system installed at C-DAC, Pune
from 54 Teraflop to 500 Teraflop has been undertaken.
Major on-going Plan
scheme/programmes of the Department
E-Governance: Of the 31 Mission Mode Projects
(MMPs), 24 have been approved by the Government of India. 22 MMPs have gone live
and are delivering services electronically.
State Data Centre (SDCs):
As on date 17 SDCs have been made operational
and SDCs in 3 states are under implementation.
Common Service Centers (CSCs):
The CSCs are ICT
enabled kiosks with broadband connectivity to provide various government,
private and social services at the doorstep of the citizen. As on date, more
than of 98,055 CSCs have been made operational in thirty five
States/UTs.
E-District: The Department has approved 16 Pilot
e-District projects covering 41 districts. Pilot project has been launched/gone
live in all the 41 districts across the country. The scheme for National Roll
Out of e-District Mission Mode Project (MMP) was approved by the Cabinet
Committee for Infrastructure on 20th April 2011.
Mobile Governance: DeitY has developed and notified the
Framework for Mobile Governance in February 2012.
Cyber
Security
·
Indian
Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has been operational as a national
agency for cyber security incident response.
- National Crisis
Management Plan for countering cyber attacks and cyber terrorism has been
prepared and is being updated annually.
- To enable
comprehensive cyber security policy compliance, the govt has mandated
implementation of security policy within govt in accordance with the Information
Security Management System (ISMS) Standard ISO 27001. In addition, Computer
security guidelines have been issued for compliance within Govt. A Common
Criteria based IT product security testing facility has been set up at
Kolkata.
- During the Year
2012, Cyber Regulation Advisory Committee has been reconstituted and notified
under Section 88 of Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008. The first
meeting of the re-constituted committee was held on 29th November
2012.
National Knowledge
Network
·
915 links
to Institutions have been commissioned and made operational. This includes 266
links to institutions under NMEICT, which have been migrated to
NKN.
- 61 virtual
classrooms have been setup.
Research &
Development
Cloud
Computing
Recognizing the potential of cloud
computing, in areas such as e-governance, education, etc, CDAC has completed
Cloud Stack – named Meghdoot using open source softwares. The Meghdoot Cloud
stack has been deployed in the State Data Centre, Chennai as a Proof of Concept,
along with some State Government Applications.
IT Applications by National
Informatics Centre (NIC)
Amongst the important initiatives by
NIC during the year were:-
Open Government Platform (OGPL):
The National Data
Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) has been notified by the Government.
NIC has developed a technology solution for establishing an Open Data Portal for
Government Departments. It will facilitate access and use of Government data by
citizen to foster innovation and promote transparency.
Central Public Procurement Portal
(CPP): NIC has developed a portal to provide a single
point access to the information on tenders published by various
Ministries/Departments, Public Sector Undertakings and Statutory Bodies. CPP is
expected to bring in greater transparency in tendering process and gradually
move towards adoption of electronic procurement solution for their procurement
needs on a continuing basis.
Co-operative Core Banking Solution
(CCBS): NIC has
launched a Co-Operative Core Banking Solution (CCBS) for Co-Operative banks. It
is being offered as ‘Application As a Service’ and is hosted at National
Data Centre of NIC. It will enable co-operative banks to go for core banking
solution at affordable cost and in a faster manner.
Department of
Posts
Contributing to the financial
inclusion of the rural people:
(A) Wage disbursal under Mahatma Gandhi
National Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): Extensive
rural postal network of the country is actively engaged in disbursal of wages of
MGNREGA with high levels of efficiency. During the year 2012-13 the Post Offices
disbursed about Rs 9,133 crore by October, 2012 through about 5.53 crore savings
accounts of MGNREGA workers standing in the Post Offices. Thus, the Department
of Posts significantly contributed towards the success of this unique social
security arrangement of unprecedented scale.
(B) Financial Inclusion of Below Poverty Line
(BPL Household: Department
of Posts leveraged its network and outreach to financially include BPL
households by targeting them for opening their savings accounts in the Post
Offices and thus providing them with access to savings services. During the Year
2012-13 more than 1.53 crore households were financially included through this
initiative by October, 2012.
Introduction of e-enabled
services
(A) 24,969
Departmental post offices have been computerized as on
date
(B) India
Post has introduced Remotely Managed Franking System in place of existing
electronic Franking Machines. Around 5681 RMFS machines have been licensed and
activated as on date.
(C) e-Post
office Portal was commissioned during 2011. During the current year PLI premia
payment has also been added apart from sale of philatelic material.
International Remittance
services
Recognizing
the spurt in the volumes of international remittances into India in the recent
years and the notable contribution of remittance inflows to the country’s
economy, the Department of Posts has taken a project to revamp its international
money order services. Currently, DoP provides electronic money remittance
services on two platforms, viz. the IFS (developed by the Universal Postal
Union) and Eurogiro. The following action has been completed in this regard:
- Setting
up an International Remittances Unit (IRU) at CEPT,
Mysore.
- Starting
the inward international money order transactions from France on 22 November,
2012.
Expansion of Clientele Base of Postal
Life Insurance(PLI)
In order
to provide insurance coverage to persons of various organizations which were
earlier out of purview of PLI schemes and to scale up business revenues
employees of following organizations have also been brought under PLI scheme
w.e.f. 18.10.2012:
(i) Joint
ventures having Govt/PSU stake
(ii)
Credit
Co-operative Societies registered under Co-operative Societies
Act
(iii)
Scheduled
Commercial Banks
(iv)
Deemed
Universities and Educational Institutions accredited by recognized bodies i.e.
AICTE, MCI, NAAC etc.
“Sampoorna Jeevan Bima Gram” and
“Sampoona Bima Sangathan”
For better insurance coverage of
eligible population, a targeted approach to cover villagers under RPLI and
organizations under PLI has been started from November 2012 as
under:-
(i) to
identify and cover minimum 75% of employees of 20 organizations up to 31.10.2012
and 30 organisations/units up to 31.10.2012 as “Sampoorna Jeevan Bima
Sangthan/Unit” under Postal Life Insurance;
(ii)
To
identify and cover 1000 villages up to 31.10.2012 and 2000 villages up to
31.03.2013, as “Sampoorna Jeevan Bima Gram” wherein at least one member of each
house hold is to be enrolled under Rural Postal Life Insurance.
Financial
Services
The Department successfully
completed the vendor selection for its Financial System Integration project. The
vendor selected was M/s Infosys who will be involved with the Core Banking
solution and setting up of ATMs for the Department. The project has started on
28th September 2012.
UIDAI Aadhar letters:
Department
of Posts is working as Register with UIDAI for providing Aadhar enrolments
through Post Offices for phase-II operations also. A total of 80,84, 181
successful enrolments have been completed.
ePost:
New and
enhanced version of ePost software has been launched on 12th December
2012. The enhanced version will have facility of sending multilingual messages
apart from sending PDF files as attachment. During the year 2012 (upto Nov
2012), 13.64 lakh messages have been sent and Rs 104.50 lakhs earned as revenue.
Sale of Gold Coins:
Under
retail post, India Post sells 24 carat gold coins of the denomination of 0.5 g,
1g, 5g, 8g, 10g, 20g and 50g through selected Post Offices. During the year 2012
(upto Nov 2012), 708 kg of gold coins were sold
and Rs 10.99 crores earned as revenue.
Project Management
Unit
The Government has approved the IT
Modernization Project of the Department of Posts for computerization of all the
non-computerized post offices, Mail Offices, Administrative and other offices,
establishment of required IT infrastructure, development of required software
applications. IT modernization Project – India Post will enable Department to
enhance and provide value additions to Mail, Savings Bank and Insurance,
customer service while providing a platform to launch new initiatives and
provide new rural services.
Money remittance through Mobile phone
service:
An
agreement has been signed with BSNL for providing money remittance through
mobile phones. This is joint endeavor of Department of Posts & BSNL. BSNL
has been provided with the requirements of DOP for development of the software.
This service specially tailored for those who have a need to remit money
regularly up to a sum of Rs 10,000. Under the Scheme, a remitter can go to any
Post Office in the Circle enabled for the Mobile Money Transfer Service and
remit an amount from Rs 1000/- to Rs 10,000/- to be paid to another mobile
subscriber at the designated Post Office. The Slabs for money transfer is as
follows:
|
Slabs
|
Charges
of Remittance
|
|
Rs 1000
to 1500
|
Rs
40
|
|
Rs 1501
to 5000
|
Rs
70
|
|
Rs 5001
to 10,000
|
Rs
100
|
The service initially has been
launched on 15th November 2012 in four Circles viz. Kerala, Bihar,
Delhi and Punjab and this service is provided in 18 selected Post Offices in
each Circle.
*****
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