Naidu pulls up panel members on ISP

NEW DELHI, OCT 14: The Prime Minister's IT Task Force chairman and Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu has admonished some o...

NEW DELHI, OCT 14: The Prime Minister8217;s IT Task Force chairman and Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu has admonished some of its members for not doing enough8217; to push the Internet Service Providers ISP Policy and the recommendations made by the hardware panel.

The policy has been hanging fire for a long time now, much after the Task Force made critical changes in the draft prepared by the department of telecommunications DoT in April and recommended an end to the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd8217;s monopoly on the international gateways for providing Internet connectivity through private service providers.

The hardware panel of the Task Force had made its recommendations on September 1. Department of electronics secretary Ravindra Gupta had told The Financial Express8217; last week that the approval of all Task Force members will have to be taken before they are put up in form of a report to the union cabinet.

However, sources close to the Andhra CM pointed out that such a formality wasnot really required and convenor Jaswant Singh, if he so desired, could directly recommend the same to the cabinet in case of a unanimity of the Task Force members on the issues. Even as the domestic hardware manufacturers and multinational companies have reached a general consensus8217; on the panel8217;s recommendations, things have not moved as Singh has been abroad most of the time.

Naidu is believed to have been piqued as he was questioned in public by HCL chairman Shiv Nadar about the fate of the panel8217;s report, after his speech at a seminar on electronic governance in the capital on Tuesday.

Later, at an informal brainstorming8217; in the city, Naidu who has just returned after a high-profile US visit, expressed his displeasure over the delay in ISP policy. He was quoted as saying that 8220;we will make a laughing stock of ourselves in the eyes of the foreigners if this continues.8221;

The deadline of the Task Force, which was expected to submit its final report on IT vision in August after its terms ofreference were widened, has now been extended to December 31.

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Naidu also asked that the Task Force to extend the scope of terrestrial linkage of the country with a much higher bandwith optic fibre network than earlier recommended by the Task Force in its first report. It has been proposed to make India part of FLAG fibre link across the globe.

The global link will be connected to the existing fibre optic link at Bombay and two more gateways will be provided at Hyderabad and Bangalore. The project is expected to be executed by the Singapore Network Services which is already working on providing connectivity in Hyderabad.

Naidu also asked the Task Force to look into issues of convergance and wireless technologies which were already crystalizing in the IT scene in USA.

The Task Force is likely to recommend making set top boxes cheaper so that these are made more accessible among the IT users in India. As these are being imported at present, Task Force might recommend lower duties on the manufacturingof the set top boxes in India. 8220;Convergence will have to be taken into account wherein one box will merge different technologies, we can8217;t afford to be left behind,8221; Naidu said at the meeting.

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Development of computer programmes in local Indian languages for wider use of IT at the rural level and making the citizen band radios available for disaster warning and accident management with links to base stations in district headquarters, hospitals and police stations are the other two significant recommendations likely to be made by the Task Force and were discussed. Special frequency will be required for the radios, but that is not expected to be a problem as there are about 40 channels which are generally available.