Ravi Shankar Prasad seeks to achieve more synergy in IT & communications

New Delhi: Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad (64), who has won his first election by defeating Shatrughan Sinha and wrested the high profile Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat, been appointed as the new minister for telecommunications, while he retains the IT and law ministries in the second innings of the Modi government. According to ministry sources, he is likely to assume charges on Monday.

Prasad, who has been instrumental in delivering the Modi government's key programmes --- Digital India and Make in India --- with multi-crore investments from top manufacturing companies from across the world, has been awarded for his hard work and long-term visions to make India a hub of digital economy.

As the new telecom minister, Prasad's top priorities may be to tap the potential of reaching $1 trillion size of digital economy by 2025, to nurse the industry back to health, besides laying the ground for the deploying 5G technology in India amid a push to drive the country into the digital age.

Setting up of judicial service commission would also be his top priorities.

Taking the data protection bill to Parliament at earliest and notifying the proposed amendments to the intermediary guidelines would be Prasad's top priorities.

"I am very grateful to the PM for entrusting me once again with such responsibility. In IT, we will try to quickly get the data protection bill to the Parliament and also, notifying the intermediary guidelines," Prasad told reporters on Friday, soon after his portfolio was made public by the government.

With Prasad getting back communications ministry, the officials of the Department of Post and Department of Telecommunications have pinned hope that all the stalled projects would be rolled out. The projects like India Post Payment Bank, consolidation of rural post offices, tapping the e-commerce potential, strengthening of mail delivery services, etc would get a boost.

The credit goes to Prasad for providing a industry-friendly environment to mobile manufacturing industry as the country is having 268 mobile and ancillary manufacturing units in India, which was just two in 2014, when Prasad was given the charge of Telecom Minister.

During his stint as telecom minister, the most successful spectrum auction in India that fetched Rs 1.10 lakh crore of revenue was conducted. Policies such as spectrum trading, spectrum sharing, spectrum liberalisation, defence band identification, virtual network operator, full mobile number portability and policy for sharing of active and passive telecom infrastructure was cleared to pave way for massive foreign investments.

Having been familiar with a plethora of issues in the telecom sector during his earlier tenure from May 2014 till July 2016, Prasad would also consider keeping the revival of BSNL and MTNL on top of his agenda list. However, other issues will also need immediate attention.

To begin with, the critical issues of reviewing of levies and fees such as license fee, spectrum usage charges (SUC) and defining what does the government mean by adjusted gross revenue (AGR), will have to be taken up, said industry executives.

These issues have also been highlighted in the National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP), the fast implementation of which will also be a key milestone for the new government to achieve.