The Government of India is organizing a series of webinars across various sectors to facilitate the efficient implementation of announcements made by the finance minister under Union Budget 2022. The webinar series is bringing experts from the public and private sectors, academia, and industry, on a single platform, to ideate on implementation strategies across sectors.

The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) along with several scientific ministries and departments of the Government of India organized a webinar titled “Technology-enabled development” today. The webinar started with the Prime Minister addressing the plenary 1 / inaugural session.

Explaining the rationale behind the Post-budget webinars, Prime Minister said, “This is a collaborative effort to ensure how, in the light of budget, we may implement the announcements quickly, seamlessly and with optimum outcome for the citizens”.

The Prime Minister highlighted the Budget’s emphasis on sunrise sectors like Artificial Intelligence, Geo-spatial Systems, Drones, Semi-conductors, Space technology, Genomics, Pharmaceuticals and Clean Technologies to 5G. He said that the Budget lays down a clear roadmap for 5G spectrum auction and PLI schemes have been proposed for design-led manufacturing related with a strong 5G eco-system. He asked the private sector to increase their efforts in these areas.

The Prime Minister also spoke about the 2 lakh crore rupees worth PLI schemes in 14 key sectors, in order to promote manufacturing in the country. The Prime Minister gave a clear direction to the stakeholders to provide practical suggestions in the areas like use of optical fibres in the citizen services, e-waste management, circular economy and electric mobility.

Shri K. Vijay Raghavan, the PSA to Prime Minister also made a brief presentation on ‘Towards AtmaNirbhar Bharat in Science and Technology’ during the inaugural session. The second part of the webinar had four thematic breakaway sessions. These thematic sessions were led, one each, by Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), and Department of Science and Technology (DST).

As a part of the thematic breakaway session on “Building a Strong 5G Ecosystem for Service Delivery”, the two panel discussions were organised by Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on the following topics:

1. PLI Schemes of DoT and MEITY – Promote Make in India of 5G products including Semiconductor fab, Mobile phones and Design led manufacturing
2. Design, Development and Creation of Technologies for Affordable Broadband and Mobile Service Proliferation in Rural and Remote areas

The panel discussion on “PLI Schemes of DoT and MEITY – Promote Make in India of 5G products including Semiconductor fab, Mobile phones and Design led manufacturing”, was moderated by Shri K. Rajaraman, Secretary (Telecom). Mr. Sanjay Nayak, CEO, Tejas Networks, Mr. Hari Om Rai, CMD, Lava International, Mr. Pankaj Mohindroo, President, ICEA, Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi, IIT Madras, Mr. Puneet Agarwal, CEO, VVDN Technologies participated as panelists. The panelists deliberated on Building design and development ecosystem of 5G products, incentivising production of 5G, Electronics & Semiconductors and multiplying new jobs in 5G, Semiconductor & Electronics manufacturing.

The panel discussion on “Design, Development and Creation of Technologies for Affordable Broadband and Mobile Service Proliferation in Rural and Remote areas”, was moderated by Mr. Ashok Kumar Tiwari, Member (Technology), Department of Telecommunications. Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur, Dr. Kumar Sivarajan, CTO, Tejas Networks, Dr. Rajkumar Upadhyay, ED, C DoT, Mr. Rajen Vagadia, VP and President, Qualcomm India, and Mr. N G Subramaniam, COO, TCS participated as panelists/speakers. In this session, the panelists shared their views on technology avenues for creation of 5G ecosystem including semiconductors, support required for Deep Tech Startups and Domestic SMEs, creation of 5G and Electronics test infrastructure and leveraging BharatNet for service delivery in rural and remote areas.

As part of this panel discussion, various aspects pertaining to Atmanirbharta in 5G Telecom Equipment including economic impact of 5G on economic over next 10-15 years, security related issues, and its benefits for India, were discussed. The inputs given by the panelists will form the basis for implementation of budget recommendations.

Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Railways, Communications, Electronics & Information Technology gave the concluding the remarks. He said that manufacturing, use of spectrum, bigger role of private sector in R&D, and design led manufacturing have been the force reckoner that weaved together all breakaway sessions. He encouraged Industry to take benefits of PLI and PMA schemes and to come up with innovative ideas to do more in electronics manufacturing.

The webinar ended with a vote of thanks from Shri K. Vijay Raghavan, the PSA to Prime Minister.

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RKJ/M