Draft Digital India Act Coming By Dec-End: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the draft for the Digital India Act is near its completion and will be made available for public consultation by the end of this month.

“We will shortly be introducing the successor to the IT Act, a much more contemporary, modern Bill called the Digital India Act,” said Chandrasekhar at the CII Global Economic Policy Summit 2022 on Thursday (December 8). He added that the draft Bill would be made available for consultation by the end of December.

Speaking about the existing regulatory framework, Chandrasekhar said that India has policies and frameworks which are two decades old. He added that the IT Act is 22-year-old legislation and it predates even the internet in India.

“It, interestingly enough, does not even mention the internet and it regulates the internet,” added the Minister of State.

The minister said that the government will create a framework of legislation, adding that the recently introduced draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill is one element of it, along with the Data Governance Act.

“These three (DPDP Bill, Data Governance Bill and the Digital India Act) will form the framework which will be light on regulation and will manage the so-called binaries of protecting consumer rights and catalysing innovation,” added Chandrasekhar.

Including the startup ecosystem as part of India’s larger IT economy along with ITES and tech manufacturing, Chandrasekhar said, “The startup ecosystem, which has been in the first phase, centred around the consumer tech and the internet space, is going to now grow into other areas including blockchain, AI, high-performance computing, electronics design and semiconductor design.”

Chandrasekhar said that a whole series of additional layers of innovations would be built in the startup and innovation ecosystem in the next phase of growth.

The minister added that India will be the ‘leading champions’ in device and IC design in the coming years. He noted that the PM has allotted $200 Mn to fund startups which are developing next-gen devices.

Speaking more on the IT industry, the minister said that India is at about $75 Bn in manufacturing so far this year.

“The goal that the Prime Minister has set this year is that we need to be a significant player in the changing GVCs (global value chains). The dependence on China is decreasing and people are looking at a much more diversified supply chain; India must be a player in that,” said Chandrasekhar.

According to the Minister of State, the government has set a target to reach $300 Bn in electronics manufactured and $120 Bn in electronics exports by FY26. Chandrasekhar noted that India is expected to export electronics worth $14-15 Bn by the end of FY23. 

Therefore, the government’s targets represent a growth of 8X in terms of exports and 4X in terms of overall manufacturing share in the global value chain.

“To put that in perspective, we will end this year with about $14-15 Bn of exports; we’re talking about an 8X growth in terms of exports alone and 4X growth in terms of overall manufacturing share in the GVC,” he said.

The comments about manufacturing come when India has been pushing hard to bolster its device manufacturing, especially smartphones.

Recently, Chandrasekhar reportedly held talks with multiple state governments to increase production capacity as Apple looks to shift its manufacturing to India as various problems in China continue to hinder iPhone production.