In order to lay down a roadmap for rollout of the 5G technology in India by 2020, the government has constituted a high-level committee namely ‘High Level Forum on 5G India 2020’. The committee will have on board three secretaries from the Department of Telecommunications, IT and Electronics and Science and Technologies Ministries. Besides, the government is also working on creating a corpus of Rs 500 crore to fund 5G activity, mainly on research and product development.
Communications Minister Manoj Sinha has said that they want to keep pace with the global technology adoption and India does not want to stay behind in 5G rollout, therefore they have constituted this committee. He also said that for India, 5G provides an opportunity for industry to reach out to global markets and consumers to gain with the economies of scale. Worldwide, countries have launched similar forums and thus India had joined the race in 5G technology and they are open to collaboration with them.
Sinha further said that the terms of reference for the forum are to evaluate, approve roadmaps and action plans for 5G in India by 2020. He also said that the primary goals of the forum are to achieve early deployment of 5G in India and a globally competitive product development and manufacturing ecosystem targeting 50 percent of the Indian market and 10 percent of global market over next five to seven years. He added that 5G will enhance gross domestic product (GDP), create employment and digitise the economy.
