Indian broadcast and telecom regulator TRAI has proposed that Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC) should be made responsible for standardising all broadcast equipment, while saying that other government organisations should be enabled to promote India-made gears’ exports.

“Enable organisation(s) like Telecom Export Promotion Council (TEPC)or some similarly placed organization to promote and facilitate exports of locally manufactured broadcast equipment.

“Telecom Engineering Centre, Department of Telecommunications, should be mandated to test and standardise all the broadcast equipment,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said yesterday in its recommendations on ‘Promoting Local Manufacturing in the Television Broadcasting Sector’.

Digitalization of the Indian broadcasting sector began in year 2012 and was completed across the country by March 2017. It provided a unique opportunity for the growth of local manufacturers to cater to the demand. The federal government recently launched initiatives such as ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’, according highest priority to transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub. TRAI’s recommendations are in line with this vision of the country.

TRAI said that there was a need to “focus on emerging technologies and tenets of era of convergence” while aiming to build an eco-system for broadcast equipment.

It suggested that centres of excellence may be established for broadcast equipment or existing telecom centres of excellence may be upgraded to focus on broadcast equipment as well.

“Strengthen existing R&D centres in public sector, such as C-DOT. Develop local R&D ecosystem along with industry participation through PPP route. Create ‘Technology development Fund’ to promote R&D and development of local products/ technologies for broadcasting sector,” TRAI pointed out.

Incentivizing use of local CAS (conditional access system), which took a back seat as the momentum petered out, and review of outcome of such measures to promote R&D and standardisation should also be undertaken.

“A go-to market strategy may also be adopted for the products developed through local R&D,” TRAI suggested, adding, “Linear set-up boxes should be brought under PLI scheme.”

It emphasised periodic review of the availability of indigenous components required for broadcasting equipment, including chipsets and availability of local components to be taken into consideration while setting the localisation levels under the PLI scheme.

“Review the investment outlay required for obtaining benefits under the PLI scheme with a view to promote manufacturing by MSME for some selected equipment as may be identified from time to time,” it pointed out, adding that promotion should be done of local manufacturing of other relevant components used in the television broadcasting sector along the lines of Semicon India Programme.

“Define the scope of ‘local manufacturing’ for different equipment categories in the television broadcasting sector in terms of the percentage of the locally sourced components/ services,” TRAI has suggested, including review of FTAs (free trade agreements) and such agreements with regard to their impact on local manufacturing in the television.