Prime Minister’s Office:

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the new International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Area office & Innovation Centre in India at a programme in Vigyan Bhawan today.

The Prime Minister also unveiled the Bharat 6G Vision Document and launched the 6G R&D Test Bed.

He also launched the ‘Call before u Dig’ App.

ITU is the United Nations’ specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs). India signed a Host Country Agreement in March 2022 with ITU for the establishment of Area Office. It will serve India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan and Iran, enhancing coordination among nations and fostering mutually beneficial economic cooperation in the region.

Ms Doreen-Bogdan Martin, Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union thanked the Prime Minister for helping develop the new ITU Office and innovation center in India which marks a new chapter in the long history of India and ITU.

Addressing the gathering, the Prime Minister said that today is a special day that marks the new year of the Hindu calendar and conveyed his greetings on the occasion of Vikram Samvat 2080. Observing the diversity of India and the presence of various calendars that are prevalent for centuries, the Prime Minister gave examples of the Malayalam Calendar and Tamil Calendar and said that the Vikram Samvat calendar has been ongoing since 2080 years. He noted that the Gregorian calendar reads 2023 at present but Vikram Samvat began 57 years prior to that.

He expressed delight that a new beginning is taking place in the telecom sector of India on this auspicious day where the area office and innovation center of ITU is being inaugurated. He also noted that the 6G Test Bed and the vision document related to this technology have been unveiled which will not only usher new energy in digital India but also provide solutions and innovations for the Global South.

The Prime Minister underlined that it will create new opportunities for India’s innovators, industries and startups. He also noted that this initiative will strengthen cooperation and collaboration in the IT sector of South Asian countries.

The Prime Minister said as India is fulfilling its responsibilities as G20 Presidency, reducing regional divide is one of its key priorities. The Prime Minister referred to the recent Global South Summit and underlined the importance of technology, design and standards as per the needs of the Global South as Global South is trying to rapidly breach the technological divide. “ITU Area Office and Innovation Centre is a huge step in this direction and will also give momentum to India’s efforts to provide universal connectivity in the Global South”, he said.

The Prime Minister said that it is natural to have expectations from India in the context of bridging the global divide. He said that India’s capabilities, innovation culture, infrastructure, skilled and innovative manpower and its favourable policy environment are the basis of these expectations. “India has two key strengths – trust and scale. We can not take technology to all corners without trust and scale. The entire world is talking about India’s efforts in this direction”, he said. 

The Prime Minister remarked that India’s efforts in this direction have become a matter of discussion all around the world. Highlighting the achievements, the Prime Minister informed that India is now the most connected democracy in the world with more than a hundred crore mobile connections and credited this transformation to the availability of cheap smartphones and data.

“More than 800 crore digital payments are made every month in India through UPI”, he said. He further added that more than 7 crore e-authentications take place in India every day. He also informed that more than 220 crore vaccine doses were administered through the Co-Win platform in India.

In the past few years, the Prime Minister said, India has transferred more than 28 lakh crore rupees to the bank accounts of its citizens via Direct Benefit Transfers. He informed that India has successfully managed to open more bank accounts than the entire population of the USA through the Jan Dhan Yojna which were later authenticated through Unique Digital Identity or Aadhar and helped in connecting more than a hundred crore people through the mobile phone. 

“Telecom technology for India is not a mode of power, but a mission to empower”, the Prime Minister remarked. He noted that digital technology is universal in India and accessible to everyone.

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