The telecom bill and digital personal data protection bill will be placed before the Parliament in July-August 2023, with the government giving more time for consultations on the draft bills.
“We’re targeting a comprehensive legal regulatory framework having three horizontals; the telecom bill, which is for the carrier; the digital personal data protection bill, which is focused around enforcing citizens’ privacy rights; and the digital India bill, which will look at everything else. On top of these, there will be multiple sectoral-focused regulations. We should be able to complete this exercise in 14-16 months. The two bills put up for consultations should pass the Parliament by July-August," he said, referring to the draft telecom bill and draft digital personal data protection bill that was put up for public consultations, with extended deadlines, for stakeholder comments.
“We’re giving a lot of time on consultations on understanding people’s concerns... net-net the solution emerging is good," the minister said, adding that other economies that were rapidly getting digitized were also looking at similar kind of a legal framework. The draft Digital India bill is yet to be brought out for public consultation.
Google and Alphabet chief executive officer Sundar Pichai said since the technology was touching the lives of millions, it needed responsible regulations and India is expected to play a leadership role in the exercise.
“Tech needs responsible regulation. It’s important for countries to think about how to safeguard their citizens, be it privacy or security. We’re engaging constructively. Given the scale and technology leadership it (India) will have, it is important to make sure you are balancing, putting in safeguards for people, and creating an innovative framework so that companies can innovate on top of certainty in the legal framework. I think it is an important moment. India will also be a big export economy, will benefit from open and connected internet, and getting that balance right will be important," Pichai added.
The government issued the digital telecom bill in September proposing to increase the scope of telecommunication services by including over-the-top (OTT), internet-based and satellite-based communication services, broadcasting, internet and broadband services within the ambit. However, the move has been red-flagged by social media and technology companies in the messaging space, as it could lead to the regulation of OTT communication apps. While the government has said it will have light-touch regulations, affected companies are opposing it.
The new personal data protection bill, which was published in mid-November, proposed to impose hefty financial penalties of up to ₹500 crore, depending on the severity, duration and impact on users of a data breach, and the ability of an entity to prevent such a breach.
Vaishnaw emphasized the role of the private sector in joining hands with the government and creating payment solutions on top of the India Stack comprising Aadhaar, Jan Dhan and Mobile. India is also building similar stacks for health and logistics, he added.
“We have memoranda of understanding with 30 countries on payments... our companies can work with foreign institutions and develop trusted solutions."
Pichai, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday evening, said that Google had built the Google Pay app using the India stack and using the model to take it to other countries. “In India, you can leapfrog and reach the next solution and take it in other countries," he said, noting the scale of the Indian market and the technological adoption enabled by users in the Indian market.
Talking about taking stock of the investments made under the 10-year $10 billion India Digitisation Fund announced in July 2020, Pichai said that India offered an opportunity for start-ups to build products for scale in the backdrop of the massive Indian market, within which policy and Google’s focus would help.
“There’s no better time to do a start-up than the current even though we’re working through a macro-economic moment like this. So I’m very bullish about this all the time," he said. He added that a quarter of the $300 million fund was announced for women-led startups.
Vaishnaw said that Artificial Intelligence or AI would play a big role in India’s technology story in areas like agriculture and making credit accessible to people at the bottom of the pyramid besides rapid adoption of technology across sectors. He said that once the three bills were in place, the use of publicly available data sets to provide better solutions and services by harnessing technology.
