A curious unwinding

A telecom body, initially conceived to cut bureaucratic red tape, is being disbanded without clear reasons

When Sam Pitroda, the man steering all tech initiatives under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, founded the Telecom Commission, there was much hue and cry in bureaucratic circles. A new seat of power was being created, against the wishes of officials who feared loss of authority in the new sunrise sector of telecom. That was 1989. Mobile telephony was yet to enter India, fixed telephone was only for the privileged and public access to the Internet was still a dream. Against that backdrop, the Telecom Commission was set up with the objective of quick decision-making in the fast-changing universe of telecommunications.

Mr Pitroda had at that time told the media that it was essential to have a flexible organisation that could respond to the changes in the telecom sector. Others backing

Mr Pitroda on the idea of Telecom Commission had admitted that there was red-tapism within the government resulting in delays.

So was born an all-powerful decision-making body on the pattern of the Atomic Energy Commission. The Telecom Commission, headed by a chairman, had four full-time and four part-time members representing key ministries and the Planning Commission. It had the administrative and financial powers to deal with various aspects of telecommunications. The idea was to cut bureaucratic red tape and do away with layers of permission to enable quick decisions.

Cut to 2023. The Telecom Commission, which was renamed Digital Communications Commission (DCC) four years ago, is set to be disbanded. The reason cited by officials is to cut duplication, delay and hasten decision-making. In other words, the reason for killing the apex telecom body some 34 years after setting it up is the same as why it was created more than three decades ago. That brings us to a set of complex questions: Were the reasons for setting up the Telecom Commission exaggerated or misleading? Have the objectives behind the Telecom Commission and thereafter the DCC (renamed in 2018) been achieved already, making the core telecom body irrelevant? Did the nature of the organisation and the processes involved change somewhere mid-way? Or, do we not know enough as to why it is being disbanded — is there a bigger reason for doing away with the DCC?

As for the process, not much seems to have changed other than the tweaks in the composition of the body. While representatives of key ministries have been able to deliberate on issues related to telecom within the Telecom Commission and then the DCC, big decisions have finally been taken by the Union Cabinet. Can that be termed “duplication” of work? In fact, for any Cabinet item, inter-ministerial discussion is part of the process.

Let’s go on to the objectives behind setting up the Telecom Commission. At the time of setting it up, the aim was to increase the telephone population from 4 million lines (fixed phones) in 1989 to 30 million by the turn of the century, besides having an efficient decision-making body. Of course, after the entry of mobile telephony, India’s subscriber base zoomed. According to industry data, in the first quarter of the financial year 2001-02, the number of new mobile connections (501,000) crossed the number of landline connections (489,000). Reports suggest that though there was a slowdown in 2000, there was a growth of over 85 per cent the next calendar year, aided by tariff cuts. The numbers from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) capture the growth story. In the quarter ended December 2002, the total phone subscriber base stood at 50.63 million, which increased to 70.53 million by the quarter ended December 2003.  The teledensity was still a single digit figure then. Two decades later, the Trai numbers show a different India. The analysis for the quarter ended June 2022 shows the urban and rural subscriber numbers almost evenly balanced at 649 million and 523 million, respectively. The urban teledensity is, however, much higher at 134.72 per cent against 58.46 per cent in rural India.

So, while the telephone population objective has clearly been achieved, the DCC was linked to the tasks of the National Digital Communications Policy 2018. The policy spoke about India’s transition to a digitally empowered economy by fulfilling the information and communications needs of citizens and enterprises. Among other things, the policy aimed to provide broadband for all by 2022. Internet growth has been flat in recent months and wired broadband subscribers are just about 30 million, though wireless broadband numbers have crossed 820 million. It will take a while to meet the target of broadband for all and therefore the DCC’s job is still not done.

Also, officials have suggested that there’s no need for DCC as it is the Department of Expenditure that clears telecom project proposals worth more than RS 100 crore. That seems to be a weak reason for doing away with a policy-making authority of this nature. If the DCC is disbanded, 5G spectrum policy could be its last big decision. But there’s no clear answer yet on why it’s being axed when it was created to reduce red tape.