NEW DELHI, INDIA: The ICT industry, the backbone of Indian economy, has come up with a list of its recommendations to remind the new UPA government to be formed at the Centre about its unfinished task, and help Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to look at the issues that are required to be addressed on priority basis and for speedy development of the industry as well as the nation.

Telecom Manufacturers Association of India (TEMA) has recommended that the new government should expedite the spectrum auction process for 3G and WiMAX and complete the same within the next two months, as delay in spectrum auction by two years has already impacted the economic growth. TEMA demanded that the Government should invest a major chunk of the corpus of USO fund in promoting rural broadband.

“Broadband services provide six times higher GDP growth as compared to mobile cellular. Delay in spectrum auction by two years has already cost dearly in terms of economic growth. Some estimates say that the loss due to the delay is to the tune of billions of dollars,” added Bharat Bhatia, President, TEMA.

The Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) has expressed its concern over the same and demanded the government to act for providing level playing field to GSM players.

“There are major concerns regarding level playing filed amongst the operators as the CDMA players have started deploying EVDO ahead of the auctions and even the public sector operators have been permitted to start their 3G services. There is an urgent and strong need to maintain fair competition and level playing field with regard to 3G,” said TV Ramachandran, Director General, COAI.

“As far as BWA auctions are concerned, there also is a demand for level playing field. Technology neutrality should be followed and auctions should be based on an internationally harmonized band plan so that both FDD and TDD technologies are allowed.”

COAI has sought attention of the new government towards resolution of 2G spectrum issues.

“We understand from the media reports that DoT Committee has submitted its report involving these issues. Moreover, liberalization of Spectrum reforms is highly overdue. This is required to support balanced growth of the sector. The government should take a holistic and comprehensive view, keeping in mind the interest of all the stakeholders and suitable policy framework be developed,” said Ramachandran.

He has demanded reduction in USO levy by 2 per cent in case of operators who achieve coverage of 95 per cent of the development blocks - a step taken by the government which has been kept at hold.

Anil Prakash, secretary general, IPTV India Forum has expressed an immediate need for National Broadband Policy with implementation plan and dedicated funds from the government (USO), like the ones done in Malaysia, Singapore and recently in Australia.

“The Broadband Policy should cover uniform right of way policy with creation of common maintain body. It should allow junction box at each building like water meter and electricity meter. The local loop should be unbundled for easy last mile access. There is need for quick migration plan from IPv4 to IPv6. The government should come up with clear cut road map for NGN migration effecting policy and regulatory frame work,” said Prakash.

For IT penetration and hardware manufacturing, MAIT has suggested that government should focus on creation of a robust eco-system for Electronics Hardware Manufacturing, enabling India to emerge among ‘Top 5’ IT manufacturing nations by 2012.

“The government should create a vibrant domestic IT market with ‘Goal- 511’ - a target of 500 million Internet users, 100 million broadband connections and 100 million connected devices. The UPA government should enable IT and broadband penetration in every educational institution in a phased manner, i.e higher education (colleges), higher secondary education, secondary education and primary education,” said Vinnie Mehta, executive director, Manufacturers Association for Information Technology,

Mehta added that penetration can be further encouraged by creation of local language contents and application development for IT for the masses. Every e-Governance project for public services should be local language enabled.

TEMA has suggested that simultaneously the new government should bring attention to promotion of local manufacturing and IP creation for Telecom equipment. For which the new government should set aside a portion of USO fund towards use of indigenous telecom equipment by the operators.

TEMA has also expressed the need to urgently open IP services without any restrictions which other leading telecom market are experiencing and Indian subscribers have been kept bereft of such technological advancement.

When UPA government will come out with its first budget, telecom industry expects it to ensure uniform and reduced levies and taxes on telecom sector.

Adding to this Mehta said, “The new government should enable a ‘one-India’ market with uniform taxation policies across all States with minimal procedural hassles,”

Pushing further on manufacturing, Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association(CEAMA) has pointed out that set-top-box (STB) demand in India is growing tremendously. There is technology available within the country and with Indian manufacturers to make indigenous STB but still Indian manufacturers do not have level playing field with respect to imported STB.

“We are expecting STB sales in Indian market to go up to seven million this year but manufacturing of STB is not viable in India because government has allowed import of STB at zero per cent custom duty. We have repeatedly asked government to at least impose 5 per cent custom duty on imported STB for a limited time period. Once the industry takes off , government can with draw these taxes again but give us a level playing field,” said Suresh Khanna, secretary general, Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association CEAMA.

NASSCOM has also demanded new government to come up with specific policy initiatives to sustain industry’s growth through extension of tax benefits, particularly for SMEs; removal of inequities and multiplicity of taxes on issues like FBT, Service Tax and overall uniform policy environment to enhance India’s competitiveness and attract foreign investment

Industry has high hopes from this new UPA government to clear obstacle from industry development path and deliver promised which it could not do in its last tenure.