The 2023 Government Leadership Award at the GSMA’s Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona went to the India government. Listed among its slew of achievements were several milestones: successful 5G auctions, national portal for RoW approvals and numerous programmes for financial inclusion and revving up digitally. According to available data, DoT’s GatiShakti Sanchar portal, a single-window clearance of RoW applications, have resulted in major reduction in average time for approval of RoW applications from 435 days in 2019 to 16 days in July 2022. RoW rules are 5G friendly and there are other enabling measures like telecom licensees will be able to use street infrastructure to deploy telecom equipment at a nominal cost of Rs 150 per annum in rural areas and Rs 300 per annum in urban areas. Also, for faster fiberisation, street infrastructure may be utilized at a nominal cost of Rs 100 per annum to install overground optical fibre. Global recognition has come on the back of these real on-ground facilitations.

Speaking to the media, the Communications and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw averred that all of India would get 5G coverage by December 2024. He also announced that India is in talks with 18 countries that are keen to implement the 4G/5G technology stack. According to him the 4G stack being implemented in BSNL is upgradeable to 5G and it is this very stack which is destined to see export traction. Mr Vaishnaw said, that the mobile phone exports will exceed $10 billion, a big upswing.

However, manufacturing reality checks as revealed by several analysts’ reports show Domestic Value Addition ratios are still at low ebb and India’s contribution to the global electronics exports is not very significant.

Communications minister and his deputy are betting on BSNL deployments to showcase the technology story of the India stack, a company that after massive bailout injections is expected to turn in its first net profit in 2027! Clearly, it is a wrong horse to bet on.