siliconindia | | July 20179With devices supporting new-age applications, various central and state government programmes registered re-cord uptake with the citizens. In partic-ular, connectivity has saved millions of rupees, making this available for other DBT (direct benefit transfer) schemes meant for the masses. Without a robust telecommunications network, much of this would never have been possible. Preparing for the 5G WaveWhile India was left lagging in fol-lowing developed markets for 2G to 4G, the key stakeholders are already working towards proactively working for the 5G evolution. It is probably for the first time that representatives from Indian OEMs are involved in framing of the global standards related to 5G. This serves as a strong testimony to reflect the growing influence of Indian mobile services value chain players on a global scale. It also reflects a change in mindset from being mere followers to actually being early adopters of ad-vancements in technology. Support & Reforms RequiredGiven the critical role played by tele-com in the country's economic growth, one would expect favourable measures and reforms would be in place to safe-guard the industry's wellbeing. How-ever, the sector needs further support from the government agencies from a policy & regulation perspective since presently the landscape looks headed for a slowdown with alarming reper-cussions. The sector has been overbur-dened by increasing costs and gallop-ing debt, even as profits keep declining each year. The incumbent government indeed has intent to lend a supporting hand to the ecosystem players. If a programme such as Make in India gets a stronger boost and policies like MSIPS promote the electronic ecosystem of India, the Indian landscape for Mobile manufac-turing shall become more cost efficient and witness drastic changes. Since the Chinese manufacturers have an advan-tage in terms of sourcing components locally, such policies are expected to set a level playing field in the future.On its part, the mobile telecom in-dustry has been fully aware of its role and responsibility in driving economic growth. Consequently, telecom players have been making huge investments al-most every year in establishing telecom infrastructure throughout the country. As a result, millions of jobs and entre-preneurial opportunities are created an-nually, directly and indirectly. Another four million direct and indirect jobs are expected to be generated in the next five years. But the lack of adequate regulatory support has meant mobile telecom companies are struggling to keep operations viable. The telecom industry's billion-plus base of subscribers makes it the world's second-largest market. And with 220 million users, India is the world's second-largest smartphone market too. The time is ripe to scale up these numbers and drive higher economic growth. The role of mobile connec-tivity assumes more importance when one considers the GDP numbers for the January-March 2017 quarter. The Q4 GDP is 6.1 percent ­ a fall from eight percent GDP in the same quarter of last year. It's clear that the impact of demonetisation is now being fully felt. Analysts warn the April-June quar-ter could also mirror the same trend, indicating an economic slowdown is underway. But this short-term blow-back can be offset by the long-term advantage, since demonetisation has driven higher connectivity and a faster shift towards digitalisation. Indeed if managed adroitly, demonetisation can drive a shift towards transparent digital transactions backed by the backbone of mobile telecom connectivity. To counter the impact of the on-going slowdown and boost economic growth, it's time the regulatory author-ities and telecom players join hands in propelling the sector into a higher growth trajectory. For this, proper pol-icy reforms and fiscal incentives need to be in place, particularly in the case of mobile manufacturing. Such sup-port will also boost the Government's `Make in India' initiative, encourag-ing more mobile manufacturers to open units in India. All this will ben-efit the industry, the Government and the masses. Given the critical role played by telecom in the country's economic growth, one would expect favourable measures & reforms to be in place to safeguard the industry's wellbeingSanjeev Agarwal
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