Funding Options

Tax incentives and public funding/subsidies are a few very potent ways to stimulate innovations and research & development towards creation of indigenous manufacturing eco-system in emerging telecommunications technologies. This is also able to address market shortfall in meeting the R&D expenditure above the social optimum. Academic findings confirm the importance of public funding as it helps companies to integrate their internal expertise with external information sources generated through external R&D expenditure. 

5G HLF, inter-alia, had suggested that in addition to issuing invitation for 5G trials, the government need to make significant follow-up efforts to ensure successful trials that advance India’s 5G progress. For instance – constitution of a Trials Oversight Committee for each of the major trial with representatives from the OEM, lead TSP and related entities. 

Taking this 5G HLF recommendation one step ahead, the Startups-MSMEs Action Plan has proposed 4 components in Technology Trials and PoC arena: 

1. Pilots and Trials – for integrated / individual solution in a small scale (<10 crore); 
2. Consortium programs to develop commercial grade new technologies; 
3. Overseas capability demonstration and market access; 
4. PoC in lieu of deployment experience

Here, the focus is more on promoting collaboration among Startups-MSMEs, which is contrary to 5G HLF recommendations where major aim was to attract major OEMs to conduct 5G trials in India. 

C-DOT is an autonomous telecom research & development body funded by the DoT. It was established under the Society Registration Act XXI in 1984 to design and develop indigenous switching technology. C-DOT is presently engaged in developing state-of-the-art telecommunication technology to meet the needs of the Indian telecommunication network. It is involved in research and development (R&D) activities as well as in field implementation of technologies developed.

DoT has set up Inter-Ministerial Committee for setting up of India specific Use Case labs in different economic verticals like Education, Healthcare, Agriculture, Public safety, FinTech etc. DoT has approved proposal for setting up of 5G Use Case Lab in Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) at Institute of Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), an Institute under RBI, at Hyderabad with a proposed funding requirement of Rs. 22 Crores for a period of 3 years. IDRBT has started working with banks and industry for development of Use cases in Banking services.