Telecom Lead India:
Telecom Equipment Manufacturer’s Association (TEMA) of India has requested the
telecom ministry to reject Booz & Co’s report on Indian telecom equipment
manufacturing.
According to the Booz & Co report, India will account
for only three percent of the global market by 2020, therefore self-reliance is
not a viable tool to drive the globally competitive economies of scale.
TEMA, in a letter to Communication & IT Minister Kapil
Sibal, said the Booz & Co report is an attempt to polarize and paralyze the
efforts of Government of India to incentivise the local innovation and
manufacturing.
Interestingly, the study done by Booz & Co was sponsored
by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).
According to TEMA, the telecom equipment market is expected
to grow to $40 billion by 2020, up from current level of $10 billion.
The report of Booz & Co is based on surmise and
conjecture completely ignoring the growth potential of the domestic
manufacturing in India, to which Government of India is committed. This report
in a way takes this great country back to the post industrial revolution and
British Raj in India, wherein local industry was systematically eroded in order
to promote the British Industries. During that time, few Indian businesses
supported export of indigo and cotton and import of cloths spun by factories in
Lancashire and import salt from UK,” said Ashok K Aggarwal, honorary director
general, TEMA.
The Government should not act at the behest of the foreign
equipment manufacturers who are trying to ensure that domestic manufacturing
does not take place in this country and we, as a nation, always remain
dependent on the virtual cartel of a handful of foreign suppliers in the field
of telecommunication which is highly sensitive to fiscal/physical security,
strategic and forms part of critical infrastructure of the nation,” Aggarwal
added.
