COAI lauds panel suggestion to merge IT, I&B ministries and DoT under single umbrella

New Delhi, March 26: The Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) on Wednesday hailed the recommendations of a Parliamentary Standing Committee to merge the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) under a single umbrella.

According to a COAI statement, the recommendations of the panel are expected to improve coordination in handling issues related to technology convergence.

“In whatever format this is implemented, it will lead to a focussed and composite handling of issues, thereby formulating policies which are equally applicable to all the concerned ministries, as cited above, and reduce multiple policy formulations on the same subject, thus improving transparency and compliances,” said Lt Gen Dr SP Kochhar, Director General, COAI.

Taking the same logic into the operational domain covering spam/fraud messages and calls spanning over both telecom networks and OTT channels, it is necessary to apply one set of policies and regulations to both components – telecom service providers (TSPs) and OTTs.

While telcos are currently being governed by the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation (TCCPR) 2018 and noticeable results have been observed in the spam/unwanted forms of communication via the TSPs, the app-based communications currently not under the same regulation, remain unchecked and are becoming a growing concern for the consumers and the government.

The COAI said that while it is encouraging to note the recent announcement of DoT collaborating with one of the top OTT Communication Players in the country to prevent spam and scam communications in India through a safety and educational campaign, “we believe that it would be proper for regulatory and security measures to be put in place for all players, including OTTs and TSPs, to be governed by the same regulatory framework”.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology has recommended that the government constitute a media council for various forms of media, including print, broadcasting, and digital, to ensure better implementation of laws governing these services.

This recommendation was part of the committee’s report on the demand for grants for 2025-26, which was presented in the Lok Sabha on March 21.

Furthermore, it suggested that the government consider “bringing the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the MIB under one umbrella for better coordination for issues emerging due to convergence of technologies.”

According to Kochhar, “we are hopeful that this step will help in uniformly addressing the issue of spam, telemarketing, etc. to a very large extent across all communication channels and help remove/restrict the scourge of unwanted/fraud communications, thus providing much needed relief to the consumers.”