Politics too not immune to tech-like disruptions: Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad

BENGALURU: Referring to the recent Union cabinet reshuffle, the newly-appointed law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad punned on how disruption is not just restricted to technology , but applies to politics, too. Prasad thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not “disrupting him out” of the IT and electronics portfolio.

“Some disruption also takes place in politics, too. It is not just subject to technology and Internet of Things. I was the minister of communication and IT when I got the invitation. And now I am before you as the minister of IT, electronics and law and justice. I am equally grateful to the PM that he did not disrupt me from IT and electronics,” he said in Bengaluru on Thursday. Prasad was inaugurating Nasscom's first internet of things centre of excellence (CoE) in the city.

The Bengaluru CoE is the first of the pan-India initiative by the central government in partnership with the Karnataka government and IT industry body Nasscom. The CoE set up within the Nasscom 10,000 Startups Warehouse will act as a hub to support other accelerators in the region. It will incubate up to 40 startups and has concept labs for developing IoT solutions for areas like automobile, telecom, healthcare and consumer Internet of Things (IoT). About Rs 22 crore will be invested into the CoE in over a period of 5 years, with Rs 11 crore being met by the Government of India and the rest by the government of Karnataka and Nasscom.


In what seemed like a jibe at the previous government, Prasad said the country not only missed the industrial revolution, but “wittingly or unwittingly suppressed entrepreneurship.” “Digital India is a game-changer programme. India is sitting at the cusp of a big digital revolution. India missed out the industrial revolution and post-independence, we wit tingly or unwittingly suppressed entrepreneurship. We are very clear that through IT initiatives started on its own, but Digital India is something which we owe to Indians and they are waiting to tap that full potential,” he said.

Prasad laid out the contours of the five platforms to raise the digital profile of the country ¬digital delivery of services, increasing common service centres, virtual mobile network, digitising post office and setting up rural BPO call centres. With 1.2 billion people enrolled under Aadhaar and higher smartphone penetration, the Modi government has conceptualized National Optic Fibre Network project dubbed as BharatNet that aims to connect 2.5 lakh gram panchayats by 2016. “When we came to power, only 358 kms of optical fibre was laid. In 2 years, we have laid 1.23 lakh kms of optical fibre in the country,” he said.

The government is ramping up the common service centres from 2 lakh to 12.50 lakh where the service operators are equipped with mobile internet connectivity. “We are also digitizing the post office network. We have 130,000 post offices all over the country and more than 25,000 have already come into the core banking solutions. We are giving hand-held devices to 1,30,000 rural postmen to do internet banking, insurance, services in homes,” Prasad added.


R Chandrashekar, president of Nasscom said that internet of things had opened the doors to all sorts of possibilities. “We are at the beginning of a breakthrough. As we open the door, we can learn how to collaborate and bring solution to ageold problems through breakthrough prices. Some of these disruptive technologies can make $500 billion to $1 trillion annually which will be incremental to the economy,” he said.

For the IT-CoE, multiple IoT-based firms will be selected from over 250 entries. Wireless Controls, IBOT, Uncanny Vision, LightMetrics and ThingsCloud are some of the selected startups.