Big worry: unemployment and underemployment

G Krishna Kumar Sep 21 2017, 0:11 IST

Unemployment is the number one issue in 26 countries according to What Worries the World survey by France’s Ipsos, a global market research company. India is no exception to this and unemployment is undoubtedly the biggest challenge faced by the present government. It is not a surprise that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has removed two ministers from his Cabinet who were tasked with creating 10 million jobs per year.

Before we look at what the new ministers could do, let us decipher data from the latest report of the Ministry of Labour and Employment. The unemployment rate in India is 4.9%. The bigger issue, though, is that the unemployment rate is going up with the level of education.

The unemployment rate for people aged 18-29 years and holding a degree in graduation and above is at 28%. At the all-India level, 58.3% of unemployed graduates and 62.4% of unemployed post-graduates cited non-availability of jobs matching with their education/skill and experience as the main reason for unemployment. Only 60.6% of the people aged 15 years and above who were available for work all 12 months were able to get work throughout the year.

Interestingly, the Niti Aayog recently stated that the biggest problem in India is underemployment, and not unemployment. Underemployment includes highly skilled workers performing jobs requiring lower skills. An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report states that underemployment is a big challenge for emerging economies with many workers trapped in low-paid, informal jobs which fail to develop and fully utilise their skills and capacities.

Underemployment can be argued as being both good and bad. Good: as a matter of survival, people will take on any work, be it casual or informal or a part-time job. Bad: it will be detrimental if it is a long-term trend with increasing percentage. In India, we don’t have clear measures for underemployment as such, but based on research reports, it would be about 17-20%.

Australia has pioneered the use of a broader measure called Labour Underutilisation Rate (LUR) by adding the underemployment and unemployment numbers, thereby giving a realistic picture of the unemployment challenge. Based on the available data, the LUR in India would be 21-25%. This means one in every four people is underemployed or unemployed!

India needs to act before unemployment/underemployment snowballs into a structural issue. The situation is certainly not out of control yet and we need to seize the opportunities in front of us.

China has emerged as the industrial hub of the world, but because of higher employee costs, the salary levels are at least 1.5 to 2.5 times more compared to a similar skilled job in India. India should use this as an opportunity to spur manufacturing in the country. The government’s plan to revamp the manufacturing policy is a step in the right direction. Implementation will be key to realising the Make in India campaign aimed at creating 100 million additional jobs by the year 2022 in the manufacturing sector.

The government is also trying to introduce the wage code for minimum wages. Opponents of minimum wages argue that the code would lead to job losses as businesses will invest in automation owing to the high wages. However, research reports state that automatable jobs would be good for the economy in the long term.

The 18th century industrial revolution, which it was feared would cause job losses, eventually led to job creation and prosperity. Along similar lines, low-wage workers with routine jobs (or automatable jobs) could lose their work, but this will lead to them taking up more valuable jobs. All actions from the government to spur manufacturing in the country and implement minimum wages will help India over the medium to long-term.

Boost rural employment

Employment generation in rural India must also be a priority for the government. Food processing, agricultural and farming productivity improvement must be supported for sustainable job creation in the country. In the rural hinterland, finding labour force for agriculture is a challenge. The farm workers are easily lured by sundry jobs in cities. The only way this massive migration can be addressed is by providing meaningful infrastructure in villages and towns.

Maybe, we should learn from the US, where the civic amenities are the best-in-class in villages/towns. Instead of creating 100 smart cities, India should focus on building smart villages and towns.

For India to make the most of these opportunities, some swift actions are necessary. For the Digital India campaign to be meaningful, the government must ensure that accurate employment-related up-to-date data is available, or with a lag of one to two months.

Along with this, the government should also publish employment demand-forecast in every industry sector for the next 5-10 years. Such a medium/long term forecast can have a tremendous impact as all the stakeholders can coherently help in building the talent supply.

There is an urgent need to revamp the broad education framework in the country on lines of employment-oriented education system in the world, through the dual system of vocational education and training (DSVET).

Further, the government should improve visibility on skill development and job creation. It must provide thrust on re-using existing physical infrastructure or building new infrastructure for offering training.

Finally, we need awareness campaigns celebrating the success stories from Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY), aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship. A recent report suggests that the PMMY generated 5.5 crore jobs. Getting youth to embrace entrepreneurship could well be the solution to addressing India’s unemployment/underemployment issues.

(The writer is adviser, Centre for Educational and Social Studies, Bengaluru)

Will the telecom war  help you?

By G Krishna Kumar  |   Published: 18th September 2017 04:00 AM  | 

Recently, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said that call drops in India have reduced by 8 per cent over the past year. The minister has also indicated that over 3.5 lakh new towers were added by the telcos
in a year to address the call drop issue.

While the actions of the government must be appreciated, the ground reality is that the call drop menace continues to haunt the subscribers. Is it not intriguing that the call drop issue was allowed for so many years? Neither the telcos nor the regulator TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) were able to envisage the magnitude of the issue, until recently.  

The TRAI has made progress in collecting information from the end users by recently launching the Mycall mobile application, available on smartphones. The app specifically asks if the user experienced a call drop and about the person’s location during the call drop—indoor, outdoor or travelling. But then, looping back the subscriber feedback to the telcos and ensuring that subscribers experience better quality in the near future would be the key.

Based on the inputs from subscribers, the TRAI has published a Mycall dashboard, providing a infographic view on the call quality at various locations per telco. Let us take the example of an incumbent telco providing service both in Bengaluru and Chennai. As per subscriber feedback for the past month, Bengaluru seems to be significantly better compared to Chennai. The dashboard provides simple insights like finding the best service provider in a particular location while outdoor or indoor. For example, we can find the best service provider at the Shimoga bus station or at MG Road Kochi. It would be useful if the TRAI can add trends capturing quality improvement over a period of time.

Realising that the call drop situation needs significant improvement, the TRAI has proposed some stringent measures, likely to be implemented from next month. In fact, starting 1 Jan 2018, a graded penalty system is expected to kick in, wherein the telcos will be levied upto Rs 10 lakh per quarter per circle if they fail to meet the call drop benchmark. The unhappy telcos have requested for additional time to adhere to the new norms.

Will the new measure really bring cheer to the hapless subscribers who are constantly experiencing call drops? We need to wait for the next 3-6 months for a reality check. It is important that the TRAI prominently names the telcos which are falling below the benchmark.
While we wait for the call drop menace to end, the telcos are now fighting with the government on the IUC or the interconnect usage charge. The TRAI is expected come up with the final recommendation on the IUC soon.

What is the IUC? It is a charge payable by network provider A (calling party), whose subscriber originates the call, to the network provider B in whose network the call terminates. An IUC of 14 paise per minute has to be paid by A to B. India follows a “calling party pays” model meaning this charge is passed on to the subscriber who is initiating the call. The IUC was reduced from 20 paise to 14 paise in
March 2015.

The TRAI’s recent consultation paper on IUC has evoked a strong response from the telcos. The incumbent telcos like Airtel, Idea, etc. are against the abolition of IUC. They have in fact argued for increasing the IUC to 30 paise. On the other hand, the latest entrant Jio, which has disrupted the market by treating voice call as data, wants the IUC removed. Jio uses Voice over LTE or VoLTE, allowing voice calls through its state-of the-art IP network.

The reason for such a divergent view is  simple: India still being largely a voice-driven market, the incumbents would lose thousands of crores of IUC revenue, considering the large base of Jio subscribers who will be calling the incumbents.
In fact, a telco has proposed that two types of IUC must be charged—one for calls made through traditional networks and another for VoLTE networks.

The zero IUC or Bill and Keep (BAK) model allows for calls to be terminated at zero charge. Basically, the telcos recovers their costs from their own customers instead of charging other operators. In a situation where the voice call traffic amongst telcos is roughly similar, BAK would be appropriate.

Reducing the IUC to zero would help the subscribers as the cost of voice call would reduce in the near term. But then, the network has to be maintained and telcos would end up charging the subscribers back at some point.

In the current setup, the TRAI should consider a gradual reduction of the IUC over the next 2-3 years. This will help the incumbents upgrade their infrastructure and stay relevant. The Indian telcos’ financial stress is well known with over Rs 4 trillion debt.

The TRAI should consider linking the IUC to the quality of service provided by the telcos. Of course, the telcos who are not able to adapt to the newer technologies will fall aside.
In addition, the government should take a relook at the regulatory fees imposed on the telcos. The regulatory levies and taxes in India are the highest in the world, with telcos having to pay 25-30 per cent of the gross revenue as tax.

Currently, there is not much to choose between the telcos in terms of quality of service. A recent report states that India’s data download speed is just one-third of the global average and countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan are ahead of us. The telcos would do well, if they stop indulging in price wars and instead focus on providing innovative and best-in-class subscriber experience.

G Krishna Kumar
ICT professional and columnist based in Bengaluru
Email: krishnak1@outlook.com

Lessons to learn from IT industry's current turmoil

G Krishna Kumar, Jul 11 2017, 0:03 IST
A recent news report indicating grim outlook for the Indian information technology industry this year, adds to the negative news flow on the industry. This comes in the backdrop of reports suggesting that one lakh IT employees could be laid off. “Uberisation” (a new term coined to indicate freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs) of workforce has just added to the anxiety amongst the techies.

Despite the current turmoil, IT jobs are still the most sought after. The IT industry provides employment to 40 lakh people, or 5-6% of the organised workforce. It also provides indirect employment to about 1.4 crore people.

The layoffs are attributed to the possible reduction in IT outsourcing and the need for highly productive work force (weaker hands fall aside). Further, the threat of automation (robots taking over jobs, leaving many people jobless) just adds to the uncertainty.

Also, the challenge faced by IT companies to remain profitable, where the average salary has gone up by two to 2.5 times over the past 15 years. However, the revenue that the organisation generates per engineer has remained constant or in most cases has dropped over 25% during this period adding to the woes of the industry. 

The IT industry had witnessed two major downturns in the past — the dot com bubble of 2000-01 and the global recession of 2008-09. Will 2017-18 be the next major downturn? May be it is a sheer coincidence that every eighth year the industry witnesses a downturn. 

The good news is that in both the previous two cases, the sector demonstrated resolve and grew post the event. Incidentally, IT Minister Ravishankar Prasad has categorically denied any IT downturn now and predicted an addition of three million workforce into the industry over the next five years.

With the fast-changing technology landscape, employees can become redundant rather quickly if they don’t reskill themselves. But then, reskilling is not new to the Indian IT industry. During 1998-99, thousands of people trained themselves on Y2K, and post 2000-01 the same set of people learnt and adapted to newer technologies.

Over the past few years, easy access to broadband internet coupled with the availability of online platforms for learning like online video tutorials, the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses), mobile apps etc, has definitely helped the motivated and self-driven employees to reskill themselves.

Over the past 1-2 years, many companies have undertaken large scale re-skilling efforts to ensure the employees stay relevant. A report from the IT industry body Nasscom indicated that 40% of India’s IT work force must reskill themselves. It has also identified 55 new job roles across various technologies. It is predicted that 50-60% of the skills will be around the new technology areas. 

It is not just about reskilling, the need for competent and highly productive people is even more important now as the knowledge level required is high in order to meet the customers’ time-to-market requirements and to drive innovation. A highly productive team would mean fewer people and faster completion of tasks. 

Over the past 15 years, software automation has helped in improving efficiency, especially in the areas of software testing. Availability of productivity/collaboration platforms is allowing people to work from remote locations. Here, uberisation can play an important role by addressing the supply of expertise just-in-time. However, this needs maturity from the organisation as well as the freelance experts.

While the IT industry finds its way through reskilling and uberisation, we have a problem with the talent pool from engineering colleges. Sample this: 3,000 engineering colleges, eight lakh students passing out every year, 55% of the students aspiring for software employment while only 3% of them are ready for such jobs.

Mindless mushrooming of engineering colleges over the past 15-20 years piggybacking on the IT industry has resulted in a near catastrophe in terms of quality of engineering graduates. The Ministry of Human Resource Development should tighten entry criteria for students entering into the engineering stream while some serious action is needed to upgrade the infrastructure and teaching staff in the colleges.

The other area of focus should be on industry exposure to the students. We need a sustainable model that can encourage industry-academia co-working and can add value to the students.


Alternative industry
India’s over-dependence on the IT sector for employment generation must stop. The biggest challenge is that we don’t have an alternative industry that can offer employment to a large pool of people.

While we are proud of the demographic dividend, with India set to become the youngest country by 2020 with an average age of 29, job creation is going to be the biggest challenge for the country. We need alternative industries, be in manufacturing, infrastructure or agriculture to pick up and thereby enable large scale employment.

In addition, to benefit from demographic dividend, encouraging entrepreneurship is much needed. In advanced countries, it is established that entrepreneurship has a strong correlation with job creation. Entrepreneurship is still a developing theme in India. Many educational institutions have started entrepreneurship cells or E-cells to inspire students, but the success rate has been patchy.

The National Entrepreneurship Network is supporting the Pradhan Mantri Yuva (Yuva Udyamita Vikas Abhiyan) Yojana under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship for formally teaching entrepreneurship. The government’s Mudra scheme for encouraging entrepreneurs has resulted in over seven crore people getting loans totalling 3.2 lakh crore. This is a step in the right direction but awareness campaigns on the employment generated through this scheme is needed to attract youngsters to embrace entrepreneurship.

While the IT industry is attempting to come out of the current turmoil, we need a robust ecosystem that goes beyond IT if India has to benefit from demographic dividend.

(The writer is Adviser, Centre for Educational and Social Studies, Bengaluru)

Indian Railways: Only rapid tech adoption can solve safety, speed challenges

By: G Krishna Kumar | Published: February 28, 2017 4:32 AM

Recently, I was travelling in China and was particularly impressed with the affordable high-speed train CRH (China Railway High speed). In general, the major railway stations resemble any international airport with excellent passenger-friendly facilities. Mandatory security screening of people and luggage at the railway stations is worth mentioning—considering we have virtually non-existent screening at railway stations and bus terminals in India.
The journey from Beijing to Shanghai was covered in less than five hours, with CRH clocking a peak speed of about 315 kmph. Introduced a decade ago, CRH has become very popular with an annual ridership of over 140 crore last year. It is certainly comparable with Japan’s Shinkansen (Bullet train) or Europe’s TGV/ICE in terms of the quality of experience. High-speed trains are certainly not a luxury, and greatly improve productivity. Imagine a four-hour train journey from Bengaluru to Mumbai, at an affordable price.

Although governments in the past have “attempted” to modernise the Indian Railways, it is sad that India is still far away from a high-speed rail system. The country has the fourth-longest railway network (after US, China and Russia) in the world. The Shatabdi Express, which started almost 30 years back, can only clock 150 kmph. Isn’t it intriguing that no technology/innovation was pursued to better the speed of our trains? The Gatiman express is the fastest with 160 kmph.

The Talgo train, which could reduce the travel time by 25% with no additional investment on railway infrastructure could be the way forward. But that will take at least 1-2 years. Talgo trains which can clock 180-200 kmph, are planned to replace Shatabdi and Rajdhani. This is India’s best bet, while we await the Bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, but this is expected to take at least six-eight years to be ready.

While India tries to get its high-speed network with trains clocking upto 320 kmph (that’s double the Shatabdi speed), Japan and China are aggressively implementing super-high-speed, 500 kmph rail network. Also, the world awaits the trial run of the Hyperloop (a technology using specially built tubes) that can travel at over 900 kmph. The founder of Hyperloop has stated that India can have a Hyperloop in 38 months.

While we await high-speed trains, we have a here-and-now problem around safety. The recent spate of railway accidents has resulted in the death of close to 200 people. Statistics on the Indian Railways’ website indicate that thousands of people die every year due to other reasons—level crossing, over-crowding in trains, etc. Considering the safety challenges, the finance minister in his budget speech announced the formation of a Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh with a corpus of R1 lakh crore. A good move indeed, however, time-bound implementation will be the key.

As total hours of interruption to “through traffic” on railway network due to train accidents, failure of railway equipment was 1,281 hours in 2015 in India. Compare this with Japan, where the total delay across all the Shinkansen network is around 35 seconds per day, amounting to an annual delay of less than four minutes. The 53-year old Shinkansen network has an impeccable record of zero accidents.

Europe’s railway safety performance report 2016 states that European railways are the safest mode of land transport, despite the recent accidents in Germany and Italy. In fact, report credits the hugely improved safety due to strong technology adoption.

Fundamentally, we need to modernise the signalling and communication systems in the Indian Railways, considering that we still use manual signalling at several places. Although wireless technologies, like GSM-Railways (GSM-R) are being tried, due to poor implementation, the Railways has not been able to utilise the full potential. On the other hand, advanced countries are looking at high-speed 4G wireless technologies for railway communication.
In the EU, automatic train protection system (ATP) is used for monitoring and restricting speed, and reducing the risk of collisions and derailment of trains. Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) has been in the news for many years in India. One such system was piloted in south Indian on a 68 km stretch, recently.

Advanced countries are investing heavily in R&D to further improve safety. For example, in the UK, a sensor system has been developed that could turn any train into a track monitor that can inspect the condition of rails. This can provide real-time information. In addition, artificial intelligence and data analytics is used for providing additional insights.

Electronic sensors, including acoustic and temperature based sensors would provide advance information about any structural failure or damages to the railway track and about the wheels. Such technologies are relevant in the Indian context as over 15% of the accidents are due to track defects.

The government plans to get rid of unmanned level crossing in the country by 2020. This is indeed the right step.
Effective adoption of technology can certainly improve safety, but this would involve significant effort in training and upskilling the railway staff. Recently, the Indian railway inked an agreement with Italian railway for conducting safety audit. As per the agreement, India could significantly benefit from Italy’s technological know-how.

The author is ICT professional, based in Bengaluru. Views are personal

Going cashless, a tall order beset with many challenges

By G Krishna Kumar, Dec 26, 2016,

In a recent TV interview, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said that Indians will wholeheartedly embrace cashless transactions over the next six months. It is a tall order, despite the lucky draws announced for promoting digital transactions.

But then, the demonetisation may drive the “hesitant digital citizens” (people who are aware of cashless modes, but always preferred cash over debit/credit cards/net-banking etc) to adopt cashless transactions.

“Cashless” is emerging as a global trend and the government, following demonetisation, is trying its best to create a cashless digital society. A major bank in Australia has declared that it will no longer accept notes/coins. In Nordic countries, most banks do not accept cash or dispense cash in their branches. Sweden expects over 99% of all transactions to be cashless soon, and is slated to be the first cashless country in the world.

India’s cash-to-GDP ratio is 11%, much higher than the advanced economies and even other BRICS countries. A study reveals that India could save Rs 70,000 crore over five years even if 25% of the cash transactions move to cashless. Sample this: a recent report indicates that at least 90% of retail transactions in India are in cash. Compare this with the advanced countries, where the number is just 10%, while it is 40% in emerging economies. Hence, it is not surprising that India fares poorly in the 2016 Digital Money Index, published by Citibank and Imperial College, London.

The Digital Money Index uses four pillars for rating - government support, financial and technology infrastructure, presence of digital money solutions and propensity (of consumers and businesses) to adopt digital innovations. India stands at 63rd position (out of 90 countries) while Finland tops the list and China is at 38th position.

India has a better rating on financial and technology infrastructure compared to China, Korea and Malaysia, but fares poorly on propensity to adopt digital innovations. On this parameter, India is at 74th position, Korea and China are at 14th and 46th respectively. The US, UK, Sweden and Japan are among the top due to high propensity of consumers and businesses to adopt digital innovations.

India has joined the United Nations’ “Better than Cash Alliance” (BTCA). The BTCA aims to encourage governments, development organisations and the private sector to commit to the digital transition. This, along with the government’s massive thrust encouraging people to use digital modes should help India securing a higher rank in the Digital Money Index over the coming years.

A recent survey by a business daily states that six out of 10 people don’t believe India can go cashless. Well, that’s precisely how we would have responded 10 years back if had asked whether most Indians would own a mobile by 2016. Just as the mobile revolution surprised everyone, the cashless (or less cash) transactions could be the next revolution.

The current demonetisation has provided an opportunity for the public to experience cashless transactions by adopting mobile wallets. Right now, the digitally literate Indian is spoilt for choice – among others, Paytm, Olamoney, Mobikwik, Freecharge Reliance’s Jio Money, with the latest addition to this list being Airtel Money.

The government has been asking people across the country to understand different digital channels for transactions. There are quite a few examples where semi-literate road-side vendors have quickly adopted m-wallets for selling tea, vegetables and flowers, allowing even small value transactions of Rs 5.

While India is gearing up for going cashless or less cash, there are definite challenges. Many shops, even established doctors have always discouraged customers from using credit/debit card payments citing a 2% additional surcharge. The 2% additional amount is charged despite RBI ruling against charging customers. We need a permanent ban on surcharge and convenience fees imposed by merchants.

Despite the popular Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna, over 160 million Indians are still unbanked. Sustained effort is needed from the government for inclusion of this segment.

For debit card usage in the country to improve, the point of sales (POS) terminals needs to be significantly increased. A report suggests that India has only 14.6 lakh POS terminals. The number of POS terminals needs to increase five folds to reach the average in Russia or China. The RBI has established Acceptance Development Fund (ADF-corpus through contributions from banks) for subsidising and promoting installation of POS terminals.

Banking services
Considering that credit cards and debit cards are vulnerable for hacking and also the fact that 99% of the adults have Aadhaar card, the Aadhaar-enabled payment set up as an alternative to plastic cards, must be aggressively pursued. How about using the ADF for strengthening the Aadhaar-enabled payment system?

While a basic phone can be used for banking services, it is not intuitive. Availability of low-cost smartphones, localised content and digital literacy are needed. 

Considering that we have about 30 crore illiterates, simple user experience must be ensured. We also need special focus on improving the quality of Internet in terms of its speed.

The National Payments Corporation of India launched Unified Payment Interface or UPI, a single mobile application that can be used for several banking services. However, for availing this service, smartphones are required.

In the excitement to create a digital society, security should not be compromised. This means, even if it takes longer for improving the percentage of cashless transactions, secure transactions must be ensured. The government has already embarked on an awareness campaign.

While the government’s plan for cashless transactions has drawn both applause and criticism, for its success, we need sustained awareness, coupled with simple, intuitive and secure payment system to be created. Only then, India could become a cashless (or less cash) digital society.

(The writer is Adviser, Centre for Educational and Social Studies, Bengaluru)

For all the wrong reasons

Reliance Jio effect ensured other telcos get busy wooing subsidies, but focus is wrong
The much hyped October 2016 auction has ended in a flash with the government making only a fraction of the anticipated Rs 5 lakh crore.

By: G Krishna Kumar | New Delhi | Published: October 13, 2016 6:10 AM

The much hyped October 2016 auction has ended in a flash with the government making only a fraction of the anticipated Rs 5 lakh crore. Sixty five per cent of the spectrum was unsold, and the efficient 700Mhz spectrum did not find takers. Was it steep base price or prudent bidding (unlike the usual recklessness seen in the previous bidding)?

While we digest the outcome of this flash auction, the Reliance Jio effect has ensured all the telecom operators (telcos), including the state-owned BSNL, are busy wooing subscribers. Let’s hope this would shake-up the telecom sector and enable delighted subscribers, but there are challenges galore. The government, telcos and the regulator must work together in improving the overall quality of experience.

The next telecom wave in India is undoubtedly data. India already has 350 million internet users and this is expected to double to over 730 million internet users by 2020, as per a recent National Association of Software & Services Companies (Nasscom) report. More important, 75% of new user growth is expected to come from rural areas.

Back to basics—Call drops

While India’s rapid rise in voice and data penetration is appreciated, it is unfortunate that the telecom sector is not focusing on fixing the vexing call drop issue. Despite all the effort from the government, media and public, there is hardly any change in the ground situation. While the telcos claim to have added thousands of towers to reduce call drops, the fact remains that the call drop menace just continues.

The Supreme Court had struck down the telecom regulator Trai’s proposal asking telcos to compensate for call drops. The relationship between Trai and telcos, also seems to have hit a low. Notwithstanding this, the government must ask the telcos to improve the call drop issue urgently. Trai should seek direct feedback from the subscribers and not just depend on the test reports on call drops.

Regulatory levies

It is to be noted that the regulatory levies in India are three or four times higher compared to China and other countries. Recently, the government decided to retain the weighted average formula for computing spectrum usage charges (SUC) as against a simple flat rate. The complicated weighted average formula takes into account the frequency band, when the spectrum was acquired, among other parameters. While the government imposed a flat 3% SUC for the recently concluded auctions, it should go for the flat rate for all the spectrum soon.

The tussle between Trai and the telcos about IUC (interconnect usage charge) meanwhile continues. IUC is the charge levied by telcos for calls terminating in their network. For example, for a call made by someone from Network A (called calling party) to someone on network B, an IUC of 14 paisa per minute is charged by A to B. Since we follow a calling party pays model, this charge is passed onto the subscriber initiating the call. The IUC was reduced by 30% from 20 paisa to 14 paisa in March 2015. The recent consultation paper from Trai suggests that the IUC be abolished. Obviously, the big telcos are upset as they are set to lose a few thousand crores with this move.

The smaller telcos, especially the latest entrant Reliance Jio will be the beneficiaries, if Trai suggestions are implemented. Considering that we have eight operators (down from 10-12 due to spectrum sharing/trading pacts amongst the operators) in each circle and India still being a large voice driven market, a staggered reduction in IUC could be considered.

Zero IUC or Bill and Keep (BAK) model allows for calls to be terminated at no-charge. Basically, the operator recovers their costs from their own customers instead of charging other operators. The BAK model is followed by the landline service providers in India.

This means, no termination charges are levied for calls made from landline to another landline or mobile network. To encourage landline phone use, BSNL allows free calls to any network in India on Sundays.

Tariff war 2.0

Globally, telcos allow internet telephony or Voice over IP (VoIP), but Indian telcos don’t support it. Why? Telcos earn 5-6 times more using a traditional call as compared to VoIP calls. No wonder telcos get jittery about zero-IUC. Trai’s proposal of a zero-IUC is intended to encourage telcos to provide VoIP services.

Reliance Jio’s Voice over LTE services, completely an IP driven network is sure to disrupt the market. Jio’s aggressive growth will be a challenge till the Interconnect issue is sorted.

The anxiety amongst incumbent telcos to counter Jio has resulted in tariff war 2.0 for data, with many of them reducing tariff by over 50% to retain subscribers. This reminds us of the tariff war 1.0 or call tariff paisafication started during 2003, when voice call rates were drastically reduced (again thanks to Reliance). But then the quality deteriorated over a period of time.

Undoubtedly, the tariff war 2.0 is good news for the subscribers. Instead of only trying to provide cheapest data tariff with average quality, the telcos must compete on excellence in quality of service for data, India specific content and superior user experience. All these without compromising on net-neutrality.

Again direct subscriber feedback on quality and ensuring the telcos offer acceptable data-rate over a specified period of time are much needed.

For India’s dream of a digital society to be a reality, the government, regulator Trai and the telcos need to work cohesively for ensuring superior subscriber experience.

The author is ICT professional. Views are personal

Internet addiction’s a public health issue

G KRISHNA KUMAR

Hindu Business Line 16th july 2016, Page 8, EDITORIAL PAGE

Japan and Korea are grappling with net-induced intellectual and emotional disorders. Why fall into that trap?

The telecom and IT minister recently announced that India will soon have half-a-billion internet users. That’s an unprecedented achievement considering India’s struggle to add internet users just 5-8 years ago.

As a result of easy access to WiFi, intuitive user-experience through touch screens, and availability of affordable mobile and tablet devices, internet usage is poised for a dramatic rise in the coming years. Although India’s mobile data consumption is just one-tenth of that in the US and other advanced countries, we are witnessing challenges due to the overuse of internet, especially among youth and children.

Sheer overuse

Studies have revealed that constant internet use results in reduced creativity, reduced ability to remember, and significantly hurts long-term memory. Another study shows that internet users get increasingly impatient. The psychological impact due to constant use of internet and mobile phones has been researched for many years. The anxiety among those who use their phones for email and social networking activities is known. For instance, ‘always connected’ people are nervous when the battery runs low.

Not surprisingly, ‘online anytime’ people get stressed in a no-internet zone. Of late, we have begun to accept mobile phones/tablets and other gadgets as replacements for kids’ toys. Indeed, parents often boast of their kids’ ability to use smartphones with ease.

According to a study, the addiction problem in India is real and at least 24.6 per cent of adolescents have problematic internet use or internet addiction disorder (IAD). A report by the Indian Council for Medical Research says that 12 per cent of individuals using internet in the country suffer from this problem.

The problem’s growing

Internet addiction is a growing problem world over. Japan, known for its early adoption of technology, was among the first to recognise the challenge of IAD. It is estimated that over 5 lakh children in the 12 to 18 years age-group are victims of screen addiction. High school students spend over six hours during weekdays and, in many cases, skip school to be online.

Japan’s education ministry has started internet fasting camps where the affected children are asked to spend time on physical activities. The intention is to help them get away from the online/virtual world and encourage them to have real communication with other children and adults — basically, teaching them the importance of human relationships. The Japanese government claims that the fasting camps have been successful because they motivated children to spend much less time online.

South Korea, another technologically advanced country, considers internet addiction a public health crisis. ‘I Will’ centres have been set up in Seoul. These are intervention institutions for internet and smartphone addicts among children and youth below the age of 24. They are provided counselling, preventive education, and alternative activities.

India’s premier mental health institute, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) has set up an internet de-addiction centre for healthy use of technology. A similar centre has been set up in a few cities. But considering that millions of Indians are either already or likely to be affected with IAD, shouldn’t there be many more such centres across the country?

Government help

India has the youngest population in the world but the demographic dividend we are so proud of could soon vanish if we don’t inculcate the right habits among gen next. India’s culture which revolves around strong family bonding is expected to address the issue. Yes, it can, but with low awareness of the IAD issue, we need multiple initiatives. Today, most of us do not accept that the problem is real.

India needs a strong framework for tackling IAD. This is a good opportunity for the telecom, human resources, health and AYUSH ministries to join hands and come up with suitable actions before the problem becomes an enormous issue. The ministry of health and family welfare should consider creating a pan-India initiative similar to the National Addictions Management Service (NAMS) created by the Singapore government. Under NAMS all types of addictions are brought under a single umbrella.

We need a multi-pronged awareness campaign directed at different age groups. The Government should embark on an awareness drive aimed at educating the public on the main symptoms of internet addiction. The AYUSH ministry could consider providing intervention programmes for people who are already found to be addicted to the internet.

The HRD ministry should consider mandatory training for school and college staff, who in turn can educate students on responsible use of the internet. The main focus should be on improving children’s cognitive skills and thereby nurturing creativity. Schools can play a supportive role by educating parents about symptoms and possible actions.

Can the telecom ministry ask internet providers to run regular campaigns educating people about internet addiction?

In an increasingly connected world, we cannot shy away from the internet. However, we need a strong framework in the country to educate the public on the symptoms of screen addiction and provide intervention mechanisms. We don’t want IAD / screen addiction to spoil our demographic dividend.

The writer is an adviser to the Centre for Educational and Social Studies, Bengaluru. The views are personal

(This article was published on July 15, 2016)