SFLC.in welcomes the Department of Telecommunications (“DoT”) for circulating the draft National Telecom Policy 2025 (“Draft NTP or Draft Policy”), to invite comments,objections and suggestions for a wider consultation process with the public. Given the futuristic ramifications of the Draft National Telecom Policy 2025, it should have also been released in different vernacular languages to ensure that the consultation process remains inclusive across different regions/parts of India.
At the outset, the Draft National Telecom Policy 2025 does a fair job of outlining an ambitious set of goalposts, such as universal and meaningful connectivity, promoting and advancing integrating emerging technologies into telecommunications and building a secured and trusted network.
However, the Draft Policy fails to provide valuable information to the larger public on several fronts. Firstly, the DoT should provide information on how the successes of implementing the National Communications Policy provided a fruitful direction for developing the present Draft National Telecom Policy 2025.
Secondly, the DoT could elaborate on how recent shifts caused through the introduction of regulatory frameworks for telecommunications and data protection would be instrumental in ensuring cybersecurity and digital privacy of all stakeholders in the telecommunications ecosystem.
Thirdly, DoT fails to provide a clear roadmap on the broader process that would be undertaken to achieve Missions 1 to 6. In its current form, the Draft NTP only apprises the public of the intended outcomes to be achieved but, it is equally important to identify the necessary steps that will be undertaken to achieve these Missions.
Given the concise and goal-oriented structure of the Draft NTP, SFLC.in provides the following set of comments –
