In an address to the press, Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association of India (TEMA) thanked Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) complimented it on wonderful recommendations made on 3rd August 2018 to promote the development of local manufacturing telecom equipment.
The same are expected to give a boost for local manufacturing. TRAI has considered and met almost all the suggestions made by TEMA during consultation paper.
The key takeaways from the recommendations are:
1. Of prime value is TRAI’s suggestion that the local manufacturing is looked after at the level of Member in Telecom Commission. In fact, earlier Member Production was solely responsible for the promotion of local manufacturing. TEMA requested that this post is filled up immediately.
2. There was always confusion and non-clarity in locally manufactured, assembled, produced products. TRAI recommended that telecom products be classified as either fully finished imported products or Indigenous products and Indigenous products to be further classified into Made in India Products, Designed in India Products or Designed and Made in India Products.
3. Net zero import of telecom equipment by 2022 and a suggested role of Telecom Equipment Manufacturing Council (TEMC). In fact, the TEMC has made several recommendations in the past and TEMA requested that their recommendations be accepted immediately.
4. Telecom Research and Development Fund (TRDF) to receive an initial corpus of Rs. 1000 Crore, and the setting up of Telecom Entrepreneurship Promotion Fund (TEPF) and Telecom Manufacturing Promotion Fund (TMPF).
5. TEMA thanked TRAI for increasing the role of TEC by establishing Telecommunication Equipment Development Board (TEDB) and setting its role for innovations, R&D, testing certification, and manufacturing.
6. Telecommunication Technology and Systems Design Labs are to be set up in Universities/ technical institutes for development of telecom equipment and manufacturing.
7. Another major hindrance faced in the past were trials for new technologies and ideas. In this behalf TRAI has recommended that permissions for trials of new technologies’ products and running pilot projects should be simplified.
8. On IPRs, the TRAI has recommended that a portal be developed for self loading and declaration of SEPS. In this behalf TEMA requested that there must be some Government authority should certify that a particular patent is SEP. This is because self declaration is not enough and in several legal cases the ratio of SEPs accepted are far less. And the royalty should also be consented by the Government and not left to market situations.
