Lok Sabha gives a thumbs up to the Telecommunications Bill, 2023. Here are the key aspects you need to know

Lok Sabha has approved the Telecommunications Bill of 2023 on Wednesday. The bill permits the government to hold control over the telecom services on a temporary basis in national security's interest. It also allows the government to provide a non-auction route for satellite spectrum allocation. The bill got passed through a voice vote post a brief debate. The bill permits the central government to possess a telecom network in the interest of public safety or in any public emergency situation. 

A majority of opposition leaders were not present at the House because of their suspension.

It is Mr. Ashwini Vaishnaw, Communications Minister who is steering the bill. The bill provides for ceasing the transmission of messages in situations of public emergency.

Vaishnaw expressed that the bill is going to encourage structural reforms in the sector of telecom.

Important things to consider

The bill aims at making the current licensing regime for telecom networks easy by means of heading towards an authorization system. The telecom department, at present, issues over 100 forms of registrations, permissions, and licenses. The bill aims to combine many of these in one single authorization process.

For allocating spectrum to entities, auctions are still going to be the usual norm. However, apart from satellite communications, for sectors like community radio, metro rails, police, railways, and defense, administrative allocation is what is going to happen.

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Additionally, the bill permits the government to actually take back spectrum that remains unutilized for several reasons. The bill also makes trading, sharing, and leasing of spectrum easier. Through the bill, entities will be enabled to surrender the unused spectrum. However, the government will not be providing any payment to them for it.

Here comes another important change. The bill authorizes the state and the central governments to seek disclosure, interception, and suspension powers in situations of public emergency or safety reasons. The press messages, however, have been exempted from interception. However, the press messages can be intercepted for national security reasons.

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The bill also authorizes the central government to hold control and management of the telecommunication services and networks in war events or the interest of national safety.

The bill also proposes eligibility requirements for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairperson to be selected from the private sector.

The bill defines telecommunication as,

“transmission, emission or reception of any messages, by wire, radio, optical or other electromagnetic systems, whether or not such messages have been subjected to rearrangement, computation or other processes by any means in the course of their transmission, emission or reception”. And ‘messages’ has been further defined as “any sign, signal, writing, text, image, sound, video, data stream, intelligence or information sent through telecommunication”.

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