Government Must Focus On Content Development; Digital India Plan Lacks Specifics: Rahul Khullar, TRAI Chairman

NEW DELHI: Telecom regulator Rahul Khullar has faulted the Centre’s Digital India initiative for lacking specifics, especially on the critical aspect of content development, and called the 2019 deadline to implement the project “ambitious”. “Is it possible to get a birth or a death certificate online in Delhi? If not, what sorts of applications are we really talking about? A lot more thinking and resources must be devoted to flesh out these applications instead of simply calling them e-health or e-education,” Khullar, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), said in an interview.

If the government doesn’t put more thought into content, the private sector, which has raced ahead in developing applications, will in all likelihood “end up being leaders in delivering content to end-consumers” using the government’s broadband network, he said.

The Rs1.13 lakh-crore Digital India initiative aims to deliver government services to the common man mainly through applications on mobile phones. The initial announcements, which came after the Cabinet ratified the project last week, spoke about the government delivering health, education, judicial, banking and other social services over a mobile device, but didn’t specify who will be responsible for developing content for the applications on various services.

Khullar said just announcing a plan wasn’t enough as it wasn’t an infrastructure project like a Bhakra Nangal Dam for which a team of engineers and architects could draw up a blueprint and execute a plan. “The government needs to set up expert panels across areas of education, medicine, public services, and in whichever field it wants to deliver content. This will have to be a wide-ranging consultative process, without that quality of applications will be in doubt. That, in turn, will affect actual pickup of the service by the end consumer,” Khullar said. Also, the content has to be in multiple languages to ensure wide adoption.

Khullar’s comments come just over a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about his vision of a digitally connected India through the Digital India initiative, while delivering his maiden Independence Day speech at Red Fort.

The TRAI chairman doubted if the government will be able to meet the 2019 timeline, given that backbone for the venture – the National Optic Fibre Network project – is running over three years behind schedule, since being launched under the previous UPA-II government.

“There are legacy issues pertaining to infrastructure rollout for digitally connecting the country. Moreover, there is a challenging task of devising the relevant content to be delivered in terms of e-governance. Given the mammoth task, I think it (2019) is an ambitious target,” he said. “Nevertheless, at least if the government does put its mind to the issue, it one of readying the e-governance content will be more difficult.”

Only 8% of the 1.8 lakh kilometres of optic fibre ordered has been delivered so far, Khullar said. Of the 6 lakh km of planned ducting, only 2,000 km has been done, while the actual cable pulled is just 250 km, or about 0.05% of the target.

Khullar said Trai will next month float a consultation paper on broadband to find ways to address severe delays in laying down the fibre and discuss alternative options for lowering broadband costs.

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has recently admitted to ET that the optic-fibre project had seen virtually “no progress” for the past three years. But with the current focus on Digital India, which is being monitored by the prime minister himself, the project will meet all its deadlines henceforth, he said. Prasad said the government will continue to implement the project through public sector units Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Power Grid Corporation and RailTel.

Khullar was of the view that the private sector should be involved both in the optic-fibre rollout as well as in designing content. “Involvement of private players could significantly reduce the costs of the entire project, thereby lowering final tariffs,” he said.

Digital India will be built around nine pillars of broadband highways, providing universal access to phones. It seeks to completely substitute imported electronic equipment through domestically manufactured ones, focus on IT literacy, public Internet access programmes, e-governance, electronic delivery of services and early harvest programmes. can easily achieve the first leg of laying optic fibre in about two years. The second