The government on Tuesday announced setting up of a high-level committee on 5G technology with an initial corpus of Rs 500 crore.
The committee will lay down a roadmap for the rollout of 5G technology by 2020.
"We have created a high-level 5G committee that will work on vision mission and goals of 5G. When the world will roll out 5G in 2020, India will be at par with them," Union telecom minister Manoj Sinha said.
The corpus of Rs 500 crore will be used to fund research and product development around 5G. Under the 5G technology, the government aims to deliver about 10,000 megabit per second in urban areas and 1000 Mbps in rural locations.
The 5G forum will comprise secretaries from the Department of Telecom, the Ministry of Electronics and IT, and the Department of Science and Technology and the corpus will be created from all the three ministries. It will have members from private firms as well as professors from research institutes.
The committee -- 'High Level Forum on 5G India 2020' -- will see how India can contribute to the global standards for 5G technology. "We have already missed the bus in 3G and 4G, where India was not part of any formulation which is why even a small chipset has to be imported by all companies," the minister said.
The terms of reference for the forum are to evaluate, approve roadmaps and action plans for 5G in India by 2020.
"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% of the Indian market and 10% of the global market over next five to seven years," the minister said.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) committee on digital economic policy, 5G technologies' rollout will help in increasing GDP, creating employment and digitising the economy.
For India, 5G provides an opportunity for the industry to reach out to global markets. Worldwide countries have launched similar forums and we are open for collaboration with them, the minister said.
A vibrant ecosystem of research built around 5G that encompasses industry, government and academia will further strengthen the Make In India initiative, he said.
Subsequently, it will enable design and manufacture of 5G technologies, products and solutions in India, 5G start-ups that enable this design and manufacturing capabilities, manufacture of 5G chipsets, which may require massive investments.
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- The high-level committee will lay down a roadmap for the rollout of 5G technology by 2020
- It will have members from private firms as well as professors from research institutes
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