New telecom policy likely by July

The new telecom policy is expected to be cleared by the Union Cabinet by the end of next month, Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said on Tuesday. “I am hopeful of getting Cabinet approval on National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP) by the end of July,” he said. The Centre has recently issued draft of the NDCP 2018, which aims to provide access to every household with download speed of 50 Mbps, attract investment of around ~6.5 trillion in the sector and create 4 million new job opportunities. Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said that the draft of the policy will be placed before the Telecom Commission — the apex decision-making body at the Department of Telecom — in its meeting scheduled for June 29. The commission is also likely to discuss net neutrality and framework for roll-out of the new technology machine-to-machine communications.