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Journalism of Courage
The government has decided to do way with preferential buying from domestic telecom manufacturers that it had imposed because of security concerns. The decision will now open the way for global companies like Cisco and IBM to meet the expanding Central and state government procurement markets for their expanding e-governance and other cyberspace plans.
The decision to suspend the Preferential Market Access PMA policy was taken in a meeting at the Prime Ministers Office attended by National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon,principal secretary to the Prime Minister,Pulok Chatterji,telecom secretary MF Farooqui,economic affairs secretary Arvind Mayaram and officials from different ministries.
In February,last year the Cabinet had approved the policy in view of security issues and threats of cyber espionage to cut back on the countrys dependence on import of equipments like high capacity routers and switchgear. But the implementation was deferred.
Trade associations like Information Technology Industry Council representing major foreign technology companies like Alcatel Lucent,Cisco,Ericsson and Motorola had opposed the policy while domestic telecom equipment makers had pushed for its implementation. Domestic telecom service companies have supported this position as most of them have tie-ups with them for technology.
Telecom Systems Design and Manufacturers Association,representing the local manufacturers,had said in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that they were concerned that despite a Cabinet approval of PMA,which happened almost 16 months back8230;the final notification for implementing PMA on security consideration has not yet been released.
This group includes Shyam Telecom,Tejas Networks and Matrix Comsec among others. The cabinet notified PMA policy had specified that only those electronic products that have at least 25 per cent of the components produced in India would be eligible for preference in government orders. This share should gradually increase to 45 per cent in the fifth year from the notification of the policy.
Telecom regulator Trai too has recommended an increase in the use of domestically produced equipment in telecom networks claiming foreign built ones could be prone to security threats.
