DOT plans to bring out draft of new telecom policy by the end of 2017

The Department of Telecom is planning to bring out the draft of the new telecom policy by the end of this year, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said on Friday.

"Working groups to draft the policy are being set up as we speak," she said.

Department of Telecom is already in the process of consultation by meeting telcos and industry.

To recall, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha has also said that his ministry is working on a new Telecom Policy which will be application driven as compared to National Telecom Policy, 2012 which was connectivity driven.

He said that the new policy has to be focused on the end users and should look at the newer opportunities for expanding the availability of Telecom services.

Sinha underlined that for the first time, the Ministry has decided to involve a large pool of experts from outside the department to get more inputs from the citizens and stakeholders for the new policy.

He also informed that as of April 2017, the country has close to 1.2 billion telephone connections, including 1.17 billion wireless telephone connections and similarly witnessed the rapid growth of the broadband connections that now stands at 276.52 million.

He said, more than the number, it is heartening to see the six-fold increase in Data traffic in India from 561 million GB in the first quarter to 2988 million GB in the third quarter of 2016-17, which is a whopping 400 percent jump.

"While our service providers are rapidly deploying the 4 G technology, his focus is on two important aspects- the need to expand the connectivity to all parts including the north-eastern and Left Wing Extremism affected areas and Secondly to keep an eye on future generation that is 5 G technology and ensure that India plays a key role in standards development and get a healthy share of the innovations and patents in the 5G technology pool," Sinha further added.