‘C-DoT will launch a few important products for the Digital India Mission’

NEW DELHI: Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) was set up in August 1984 to develop state-of-the-art telecommunication technology for Indian telecommunication network. The key objective was to build a centre for excellence in the area of telecom technology. Vipin Tyagi, executive director, C-DoT is preparing the organisation to play a critical role in Digital India mission. Excerpts:

The telecom manufacturing sector growth in India has not been significant. What are the reasons?

The mobile communication revolution in India came from the sky and got stuck in towers. What I mean to say is that most of the technology is being imported and very little value addition, of the order of 3% has happened. This is an unacceptable situation. Considering that we have a large pool of talented engineers, ability to design and develop systems here, we have the manufacturing ecology, that existed here, but they did not get significant orders and consequently many of them closed shop.

Was lack of demand the reason?

The surprising part is that there is demand here. There is possibility of development. The government policies for promoting manufacturing are also present. But, perhaps there was lack of support in the implementation of the policies. Further the policy changes to promote manufacturing, has not been consistently done over a period of last decade.

Will that change now?

Now, Digital India Mission has been launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is very ambitious about empowering all citizens digitally.

What role do you see for C-DoT?

C-DoT will launch a few important products with an aim to provide digital infrastructure for this historic mission.

What do you think are the key challenges of Digital India implementation?

Digital India needs to address the challenge of — how to reach the last citizen — connectivity to the diverse geographic and difficult terrains and in extreme weather conditions. The most backward and illiterate need to be connected. Integrate disabled, disadvantaged and digitally illiterate person — and provide them with all the services on the equal footing with the same prestige and privilege, which everybody else is enjoying. The rural consumers need to be looked at from the business model perspective, where the large scale aggregation advantage has to be brought about and even for telecommunications a ‘Sachet model’.