K Rajaraman, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said that the Centre's allocation of 5% of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) annually towards research and development (R&D) activities would boost IPR creation locally, and lead to design-led manufacturing in the fifth generation (5G), 5G advanced, and 6G technologies.
Rajaraman said the department is looking forward to "effectively deploying" it to enable local manufacturing especially in the areas of 5G, 5G advanced and 6G, and in addition advanced optical communications, and quantum computing technologies would also deserve a boost.
This comment came after finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, as part of her Union Budget 2022-23 addresses in the Parliament proposed to allocate 5% of annual collections under the USOF to promote R&D and commercialization of technologies and solutions in order to enable affordable broadband and mobile services proliferation in rural and remote areas.
USOF is Rs 55,000-crore strong corpus meant to boost digital connectivity in rural and remote areas. Telecom service providers contribute 5% of their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) annually towards the kitty.
The top official further said that the budgetary announcement was very significant since India lost out in the manufacturing segment over the last 20-25 years because it had not invested in R&D for local production. According to Rajaraman, the new fund support would be provided to localize manufacturing companies which require support to undertake R&D activities, and generate their own intellectual property (IP) to fuel India-centric innovation.
