The making of first telecom policy

— N Vittal

There are several ways in which I drew my inspiration and learning that enabled me to turn from a novice in any administrative department to a successful bureaucrat. Today, I would like to share four or five of those learning

Robert Strange McNamara, the American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defence, serving from 1961 to 1968, under Presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson was another great inspiration to me. After briefly serving as Ford’s President, McNamara accepted the appointment as US Secretary of Defence.

When he was offered the Defence Secretary post, McNamara told Kennedy that he didn’t know anything about the functioning of a government, to which Kennedy replied: “We can learn our jobs together. I don’t know how to be president either.” This statement has so many implications. It means that a person is willing to learn so much on his job, be it President of a country or a menial worker.

Imbibing the learning from all these personalities gave me the courage to initiate the draft for the first Telecom Policy in 1993. Not trusting anybody, I drafted it myself. Late in 1993, as DoT secretary, I took the bold decision to announce that the Government of India would provide phones to everyone on demand. This announcement did face a lot of opposition, but I was confident that brining in private operators was the only solution to this problem. I insisted on breaking the monopoly of the staterun telecom operators. You would not believe that the wait period to get a telecom connection was two years in 1990s. I insisted that it be reduced to two days and ensured that it was made possible.

The work of Sam Pitroda as a technology advisor to the Prime Minister and as head of the Centre for Development of Telematics was also a major support in the making of the policy.

For boosting the software industry’s growth and for setting up the Software Technology Park, I took some initiatives that were unheard of in the government circles. One was the government-industry interaction. I invited all the IT company heads and garnered their inputs for better policy making (remember the questionnaire approach). This made the industry confident that the government support would actually make matters better for them.

Also, I could envision that the telecom industry was benign and had a large scope for foreign investors. I perceived the need for foreign direct investments (FDI) and knew it was important for India to open the doors to companies like IBM and Motorola, by creating the environment for big-ticket investments. I also knew that software alone cannot build India’s telecom industry. The Electronics Hardware Technology Park (EHTP) scheme was launched with an aim to promote electronics hardware in the country.

In conclusion, I would like to quote what Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: “nimitta-mātra bhavasavyasācin,” meaning we are all instruments of a greater force. As an instrument of God, I was there at the right time to do the right thing in service to the society.