The Indian government has officially dismantled the Digital Communications Commission, a key body responsible for telecom policymaking and financial decisions for over three decades, signalling a major shift in the country’s telecom regulatory landscape.
The Indian government has dissolved the Digital Communications Commission, ending a 37-year-old body that sat at the centre of telecom policymaking and financial sign-off in the Department of Telecommunications, according to reports from the Economic Times and NDTV. The commission, first set up in 1989 as the Telecom Commission and renamed in 2018, handled issues that cut across departments and often carried major budgetary or regulatory implications.
According to those reports, the panel brought together senior officials from NITI Aayog, the Finance Ministry, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and other parts of government to resolve disputes before proposals went to the Cabinet. It played a key role in decisions on spectrum pricing and on recommendations from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, helping to streamline matters that affected both policy and public finance.
The move comes shortly after the commission’s last meeting on September 3, when it finalised the approach on satellite communication spectrum, the Economic Times reported. The issue remains significant because Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb backed by the Bharti Group, and Jio Satellite Communications have already secured permission to offer satcom services in India, but cannot launch without spectrum allocation and a second round of security clearance.
The commission had already approved most of TRAI’s recommendations, including on satellite spectrum, but those proposals still require Cabinet approval, according to NDTV and other reports. One report from The 420 said the government had begun dismantling the structure in August, suggesting the September 19 notification was the formal end of a process already under way.
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