India takes lead in 6G after record 5G roll out: Experts

After a successful 5G rollout, the country is now taking lead in 6G as the ‘Digital India’ initiative transforms the economy, with the Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile (JAM) trinity emerging as a solid foundation block, experts said here on Friday.

Sumnesh Joshi, Deputy Director General, Ministry of Communications said that the country has seen one of the fastest roll out of 5G services across the world and has taken the lead in 6G.

Addressing an event organised by Assocham, Joshi said that today, everyone has a bank account creating a robust ecosystem for innovative services such as financial credit or micro credit, micro insurance, mutual fund and even share-related products.

“We have to leverage the ecosystem that we have created in our country. Today, we are even able to transact just 5 rupees, 10 rupees, 15 rupees. We can now think of making a payment without the smartphone, without the QR code. Aadhaar-based payments is the next logical step and the need of the hour is to connect all the systems,” he told the gathering.

The ministry has taken effective measures to block international calls showing India numbers.

“This is an important step in dealing with fraudulent calls. There is a need for collaboration between the ecosystem partners for real-time data sharing, whether it is the fintech industry, communication or government of India, home affair, police, state government. So, we can take immediate action if anything is happening,” Joshi added.

R Gandhi, former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India, highlighted the need for a large number of financial institutions to make India a developed nation by 2047.

"We should license more banks and finance companies. We should consciously encourage select banks and financial institutions to be big. We need more differentiated and niche banks and specialist banks, digital-worldly banks, investment banks and gold banks,” said Gandhi.

According to Rajkiran Rai G, Chairman, Assocham National Council for Banking, banks must leverage technology, especially artificial intelligence and machine learning for developing internal credit assessment models for diverting credit flow to the underserved segments and for assessing the credibility of entities through the digital footprints.

“India's demographic mix, along with technological deepening, is enabling a channelisation of household financial savings to non-bank alternatives. Of late, India is seen growing richer while young,” he noted.