GoM reviews draft bill on communications

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 19. The Group of Ministers on a common law for telecom, broadcasting and information technology sectors met here today to review the progress of a draft Bill which has almost been finalised. Another meeting is slated later this month before the GoM finalises its recommendations for the consideration of the Union Cabinet.

The intention is to finalise the Bill before the deadline of October 31 set by the Prime Minister and then introduce it in the Winter Session of Parliament. The extension to a drafting committee headed by the noted jurist, Mr. Fali S. Nariman, was given to ensure that all provisions are forward looking and technology neutral. Termed the Communications (Carriage and Content) Bill 2000, it will subsume the existing Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, Broadcasting Law, Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Cable and TV Networks Act, 1995.

More than a common law, the draft law will set the tone for the amalgamation of Communications, Information and Broadcasting and Information Technology Ministries.

As a first step in this direction, the draft Bill is understood to have suggested that there is no need to set up separate regulating agencies for I & B and IT sectors. Instead, it wants the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to be expanded into a super regulator straddling all the three sectors. The body with wide- ranging powers could be called the Communications Commission of India.

The next logical step would be to cut the flab of the three Ministries and convert them into compact policy think- tanks. A merger could then be a less painful exercise.

In the Communications Ministry, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has already been spun off into a corporation and the Telecom Commission\Department of Telecom now consists of officials with policy making responsibilities.

Similarly all media units under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting are likely to be dismantled. The Press Information Bureau could be converted into a corporation or put under the Home Ministry of the Prime Minister's Office.

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