The 5G network is in the final stages of development in India, said Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union minister of information technology, on Tuesday.
“The country has also developed its own indigenous 4G core & radio network. The 5G network is also in its final stages of development. The country is participating today in development of 6G standards, in the thought process of 6G," said the minister while addressing 'India Telecom 2022' business expo.
“Today, electronics manufacturing in India is close to $75 billion. It's growing at more than 20% CAGR. Now, we have launched a major semiconductor programme, a very comprehensive programme in which right from silicon chip to compound semiconductors, design-led manufacturing, creating a series of entrepreneurs in design and also finally to develop 85,000 semiconductor engineers," he added.
This comes days after finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union Budget 2022 speech stated that spectrum auctions will be conducted this year to roll out 5G services, by private telecom providers.
She also stated that a scheme for design-led manufacturing will be launched to build a strong ecosystem for 5G as part of the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme.
"To enable affordable broadband and mobile service proliferation in rural and remote areas, five per cent of annual collections under the Universal Service Obligation Fund will be allocated. This will promote R&D and commercialization of technologies and solutions," Sitharaman said.
She said that the contracts for laying optical fibre in all villages, including remote areas, will be awarded under the Bharatnet project through PPP in 2022-23, which is expected to be completed in 2025, to provide all villages and their residents the same access to e-services, communication facilities, and digital resources at par with urban areas.
Vaishnaw had earlier this month said that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's recommendation on the 5G spectrum is expected to come by March, after which spectrum auction will be held expeditiously for the rollout of the next-generation service.
The minister said that the department of telecom is parallelly working on other auction-related processes to start the spectrum auction at the earliest.
