Assocham: Seeks dropping of proposal for mandatory telecom equipment testing

Assocham has cautioned that this mandatory testing would not only be counter-productive to the industry which is already heavily debt-ridden and would also create serious.

By Priyanka
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The Associated Chambers of Commerce of India (Assocham) has opposed the proposal of mandatory testing of telecom equipment which is used in India after certification from well-known third party global bodies.

 
Assocham opposes mandatory telecom equipment testing

The move to get the draft guidelines by the Telecom Engineering Centre for mandatory testing of the end to end equipment would add one more layer of regulation and go against the spirit of 'ease of doing business," Assocham said in a letter to Telecommunication Secretary and Chairperson of the Telecom Commission, Aruna Sundararajan.

 

It said, in any case, the telecom industry is "already heavily debt ridden" and any more regulatory compliance burden would create serious issues in the global supply chain cycle. "Declining revenues, mounting debt, hyper-competitive market place have posed tremendous pressure on network investments, expansions".

Rawat also said that most of the critical telecom infrastructure supplied to operators and other intermediaries in the entire voice and data chain are being manufactured in India itself, in the spirit of the Make in India programme.

"Instead of adding one more layer of testing, when in doubt, TEC may recognise and review from time to time the test reports and certificates issued by conformity assessment bodies that are internationally reputed to assess whether products conform to the standards and safety requirements, as happening now," Assocham said in its letter.

Assocham has cautioned that this mandatory testing would not only be counter-productive to the industry which is already heavily debt-ridden and would also create serious issues in the global supply chain cycle.

"Declining revenues, mounting debt, the hyper-competitive marketplace have posed tremendous pressure on network investments, expansions. The financial pressure is leading to further debt, and the industry is already going through a rough patch leading to consolidations at both operators as well as the global OEM's," it said.

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