India should adopt 5G technology soon, says NITI Aayog CEO

India should adopt 5G techlogy in telecom sector soon and some parts of it should be developed locally, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said. He was speaking at Magnificent Madhya Pradesh investor summit. Last week, Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson anunced it will start manufacturing 5G network equipment in India once service is operational in country. Meanwhile, Meanwhile, Huawei is also eyeing local manufacturing and says y are studying government's new policy anuncement around corporate tax reduction and incentives for setting up local manufacturing units. 5G refers to fifth-generation cellular network techlogy.

"We should adopt 5G techlogy soon as it will inter-connect devices and accelerate data flow," Kant said at `Magnificent Madhya Pradesh' investor summit. "A debate is underway on 5G techlogy. I am of view that re is a need to develop some segments of it with Indian techlogy for taking nation forward," he added.

Huawei confident it will be given permission for 5G trials in India

'Some data should stay inside country'

Kant also said while data cost in India is too cheap compared to or countries, consumption is huge. He said data consumption has seen a steep rise in last three years. In 2016, Reliance Jio disrupted India's telecom market with free data that was later made available at cheaper prices, which clearly resulted in a much-needed boost in data consumption. 5G techlogy will increase data flow and make people's life easier, Kant said. Underlining importance of machine learning and artificial intelligence, NITI Aayog CEO said government should make special efforts to expand number of data specialists and data scientists.

Speaking about individual data rights, Kant said, " user should have right over data but some data are such that re is harm in ir sharing." But some kind of data, such as that related to people's health, should stay inside country, he said. In related news, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has promised reforms in cost of spectrum and said that auctions will take place in current fiscal year. It comes amid widespread concerns over excessive pricing of radiowaves including 5G.

(With PTI inputs)