-Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser Chaired Fourth Meeting of the Technology Advisory Group
New Delhi : India has taken another significant step towards strengthening its technological self-reliance, with the Technology Advisory Group (TAG) under the Empowered Technology Group (ETG) outlining a strategic roadmap to accelerate innovation, indigenous research, and global competitiveness in the telecom sector.
The fourth meeting of the Technology Advisory Group was held on 10 July under the chairmanship of Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India. The meeting focused on identifying priority technology areas for the telecom sector and evaluating the need for a dedicated national research and development (R&D) initiative to build a future-ready communications ecosystem.
The deliberations also explored strategies to strengthen India’s innovation-to-commercialisation pipeline by enhancing capabilities in telecom standards development, intellectual property creation, advanced manufacturing, and resilient strategic supply chains.
The meeting brought together members of the Technology Advisory Group (TAG) and the Empowered Technology Group (ETG), along with senior government officials, leading academicians, industry experts, telecom startups, and representatives from key institutions to discuss India’s evolving telecom landscape and long-term technological priorities.
In his inaugural address, Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood described telecommunications as the backbone of India’s digital economy, supporting Digital Public Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, cloud computing, industrial automation, and critical national infrastructure. While acknowledging India’s emergence as one of the world’s largest telecom markets, he stressed the importance of developing indigenous capabilities across the entire telecom value chain by strengthening research, global standards participation, intellectual property, manufacturing, and commercialisation. He urged participants to identify priority technology domains and institutional mechanisms that could accelerate innovation while reducing critical technological dependencies.
Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Amit Agarwal, outlined India’s vision of creating an integrated, future-ready telecom ecosystem that extends beyond conventional communication services to include data centres, non-terrestrial networks, space-based communications, and AI-native telecom networks. He highlighted the need for an ecosystem-driven approach that builds upon ongoing national initiatives while creating long-term institutional support for technology development. Shri Agarwal also pointed to the Digital Bharat Nidhi Scheme as a unique platform for promoting research, innovation, and early deployment of indigenous telecom technologies.
Dr. Parag Agrawal, Deputy Director General of the Telecom Technology Development Fund (TTDF), emphasised the importance of leveraging India’s vast telecom market to build domestic capabilities in strategic areas such as 5G-Advanced, 6G, AI-native networks, Open RAN, satellite communications, cloud-native networks, and telecom semiconductors. He also underlined the need for stronger Indian participation in global standards-setting bodies and the establishment of advanced telecom testbeds to support research, validation, innovation, and deployment of next-generation technologies.
The meeting featured extensive deliberations by eminent experts from academia, industry, government, and the startup ecosystem, including Prof. R. K. Ganti of IIT Madras; Dr. Kiran Kuchi of IIT Hyderabad and Founder of WiSig Networks; Satish Jamadagni, Chairman of TSDSI; Tushar Sharma of Axiro Semiconductor; Dr. P. K. Jain, Director, Program Management, INSPACe; Sanjay Nayak, Co-founder of Tejas Networks; Dr. Pavan Goenka, Chairman of INSPACe; Dr. Renu Swarup, Former Secretary, Department of Biotechnology; Dr. V. Ramagopal Rao, Vice-Chancellor of BITS Pilani; Debjani Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow at NITI Aayog; Vibha Mehra, Country Manager, Nokia India; Ambika Khurana, Chief Regulatory & Corporate Affairs Officer, Vodafone Idea Limited; Prof. Rajat Moona, Director of IIT Gandhinagar; Dr. Vibhav Sanzgiri, Executive Director of Research & Development and Chief R&D Officer at Hindustan Unilever Limited; Dr. Rashmi Urdhwareshe, Independent Director at Sterling Tools Ltd; and A. Robert J. Ravi, Chairman and Managing Director of BSNL.
The experts collectively emphasised the need for mission-oriented investments in 6G technologies, stronger academia-industry collaboration, development of indigenous telecom standards and Standard Essential Patents (SEPs), and greater support for domestic semiconductor design, product development, manufacturing, and market access. They also highlighted the strategic importance of Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), trusted data intelligence, advanced analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Zero Trust Architecture in shaping India’s future telecom ecosystem.
The discussions further underscored the importance of India’s early and sustained participation in global standardisation efforts, development of advanced telecom testbeds, and policy frameworks that encourage indigenous design, manufacturing, and commercialisation. Participants recommended aligning government procurement with domestic innovation, expanding product-linked incentive mechanisms, strengthening strategic supply chains, and leveraging India’s skilled workforce and large domestic market to transform the country from an import-dependent telecom ecosystem into a globally competitive, export-oriented innovation hub.
Delivering the concluding remarks, Dr. (Mrs.) Parvinder Maini, Scientific Secretary, Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (OPSA), observed that a broad consensus had emerged on enhancing India’s strategic autonomy across the telecom technology value chain. She stressed the need to accelerate the transition of innovations from laboratories to commercial deployment through structured support for prototyping, field validation, interoperability testing, certification, and commercialisation. She also highlighted the proposed Communication Technology Task Force as an important mechanism for defining national priorities and strengthening coordination across the telecom ecosystem.
In his closing observations, Amit Agarwal reiterated the importance of bridging the gap between innovation and real-world impact through collaborative technology consortia, transparent product development mechanisms, clear policy direction, and robust government procurement support. He described the Empowered Technology Group as a trusted platform for technology assessment and strategic guidance in frontier communication technologies.
Concluding the meeting, Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood thanked all participants for their valuable contributions and noted that the deliberations had laid a strong foundation for shaping India’s long-term telecom strategy. He called for continued collaboration among academia, industry, startups, and government to develop a coordinated national roadmap that will position India as a global leader in next-generation communication technologies.
