Telecom sector witnesses FDI of 4.19-bn $ in last 2 yrs

25 November, New Delhi

Under the ‘Make in India’ Scheme, the Telecom sector has received an FDI of USD 4.19-billion during last two sectors, said the Ministry of Communications.

In its report issued today, the Ministry said in 2015, the mobile industry contributed 6.5 percent to India’s GDP (USD 140-billion) and provided direct and indirect employment to 4-million people in India.

Besides, the Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) has empanelled 650 training partners across the country and trained 3.5-lakh persons so far in telecom training courses, which included 60,000 enrolled under the scheme of skill development in Electronic System Design & Manufacturing (ESDM).

It also described that the mobile economy, with a current subscription penetration rate of 40 percent, was expected to grow at a faster rate than the economy as a whole, and would contribute 8.2 percent to India’s GDP by 2020 and thereby creating 8,00,000 new jobs in this sector.

The report said the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) programme to provide broadband to 2.5-lakh gram panchayats was rebranded in April 2015 as Bharat Net. Under Bharat Net project, optical fibre has reached 59,945 Gram Panchayats and optical fiber cable has been laid for 137,513-km.

Further the Basic Customs Duty (BCD) and special additional duty have been withdrawn and importers of mobile handset components such as chargers, adaptors, batteries and wired headsets needed to pay only the countervailing duty of 12.5%. A duty advantage of 10.5% exists for local manufacturers of mobile speakers and batteries.

The Department has also constituted a Fast Track Task Force (FTTF) to ‘catalyse a handsets and component manufacturing ecosystem in India. It is expected to promote large scale manufacturing and assembling activity to achieve production of 500-million mobile handsets by 2019.