Narendra Modi's Digital India initiative is a revolution: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Prime Minister Narendra Modi started the digital India initiative and being the Communication & IT Minister, the implementation of this falls on you. How far has the initiative reached?

'Digital India' is a revolution in itself. It will be made possible in three phases - all gram panchayats are to be connected, all government services should be provided on a digital platform and every Indian should be informed and educated about digital platforms.

When you say India has to be digitally strengthened, by when can this be realistically implemented? Any timeline?
We will connect 50-60 thousand gram panchayats by March-April 2016, one lakh by 2017 and another lakh by 2018. We are working on this and monitoring everything and then the zila (district) will be connected to the gram panchayats. Every government service will be available digitally, like e-health and e-education. In the same way that TV became a rage and spread its wings everywhere, we want this 'Digital India' to happen, for which we will take help from private companies as well.

Several Congress ministers have alleged that you are trying to do the same things that they were doing.
Congress is open to have their misconceptions. If they were doing well, why would the public not support them? As far as digital media is concerned, there are hardly any mobiles manufactured in our country. Set-Top Box, SIM cards, smart cards nothing. I have recently started an electronic cluster based in Bhopal and Jabalpur. So, its all taking place together. I'm also trying to ensure that the poor have access to technology. My dream will come true when a dalit in a remote village of our country will be digitally versed.

You recently met with defence minister Manoj Parrikar. What measures have been taken in order to release spectrum from the defence and has the defence minister agreed to this?
We both feel that while spectrum is critical to our national security, it's equally important for the telecom sector. We are hoping to get whatever is not required by them or we can exchange or share the services sometimes. These are various possibilities and we are still in talks.

If you get access to the spectrum, do you think the sector can get a boost?
I don't want to speculate on that. I believe in doing the work.

Is there a possibility of the 2G, 3G and 4G auctions to be held together?
The work is still in progress, so I won't be comment on that. All I would say is that we'll try to make the process as honest and transparent as possible.

Are call rates expected to go up after the auctions due to expensive spectrum, directly impacting the customers?
There is going to be a lot of scope considering the numerous spectrums and the country's population.

The telecom, IB and IT ministry play a very important role in the e-com sector. Does the government plan to implement any regulations on this industry?
Our country has over 70k crore users. We will soon be the second largest country to use the internet after China. The Chinese site 'Alibaba' has over 2 lakh drivers working in it. So, there is a scope of unlimited opportunities in this field. I have also asked the postal department to work in tandem with it and they are working very hard towards it. I have also told them to reach out to artisans in various parts of the country and help promote their art and products. I am not in favour of regulations, but people should be penalised incase of violation of laws or quality control. Mark Zuckerberg made Facebook when he was 19, the founder of Flipkart created the site at the age of 25. So, I'd like to encourage the youth and their capabilities.

Will regulations curtail the growth?
I don't believing in curtailing or discouraging entrepreneurship by imposing regulations.

Do you think working hand in hand will improve the situation and will it impact the GDP in the near future?
Definitely, if there is a good linkage and back-end communication in rural areas, there will be warehouses in small towns, supply in villages and e-commerce will grow and so will the GDP. As far as Indiapost is concerned, it is almost a 100-year-old institution with over 1.5 lakh post offices with a wide reach in villages.

According to sources, it is being said that creating Wi-Fi zones is not possible right now and that you have also informed the PMO about the same?
We still plan to make important areas Wi-Fi enabled and are still planning. Free Wi-Fi cannot be unlimited, may be for a short period. I have asked the tourism department to co-ordinate and work on this.

What is the government doing to revive MTNL and BSNL?
BSNL and MTNL have faced a lot of challenges in the past few years. Thousands of crores of rupees were spent on spectrum which was never used, so they incurred losses. They didn't have the required equipments because the tenders were not finalised on time. A lot of work is being done on the infrastructure and investments in these two companies to improve their state. Also, a lot of towers are being erected in the North-East and hilly regions. This is one of the projects of the Digital India campaign.

The consumer orientation of these companies isn't very good.
That need not be changed. Today BSNL has a wide reach in many villages. It's not only BSNL but even private networks face issues sometimes even in Delhi.

Are MTNL and BSNL likely to merge?
No comments. As of now we want to revive them and have no plans of merging them.

Is there a shortage of funds for the optical fibre yojana?
There is no shortage, it's the biggest project and we are doing our best.

It's an important phase for digital media, any comments?
Indeed.