Bharat 6G Mission: PM Modi unveils India's 6G project, official testbed

As part of this initiative, a 6G testbed project has been introduced to enable research on novel network technologies.

The Bharat 6G project has been initiated by the government and an apex council has been designated to oversee its progress. India is the second largest telecommunications market worldwide with 1.2 billion digital subscribers.

During the event, Modi stated that the last nine years have seen exceptional digital advancement, with India's digital economy growing 2.5 times quicker than the national economy.

Additionally, Modi unveiled the 'Call Before You Dig (CBuD)' application to facilitate coordination between excavation agencies and underground utility owners, in order to prevent damage to utilities resulting from digging activities.

“Over this period, the number of broadband users rose to 800 million, from 60 million, and the number of internet connections rose to 850 million from 250 million. The government and private sector together have laid over 2.5 million km of optical fibre,” he said.

Modi emphasized that India is the most interconnected democracy globally, where 70 million e-authentications are carried out daily and 8 billion UPI transactions are executed monthly. He further highlighted that India has successfully disbursed more than ~28 lakh crore directly to its citizens through direct benefit transfers.

ITU is the United Nations’ specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs). Headquartered in Geneva, it has a network of field offices, regional Offices and area offices.

India signed a Host Country Agreement in March 2022 with ITU for the establishment of an Area Office.

The Area Office in India is also envisaged to have an Innovation Centre embedded in it making it unique among other area offices of ITU. The Area Office, which is fully funded by India, is located on the second floor of the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) building at Mehrauli New Delhi.

It will serve India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan and Iran, enhancing coordination among nations and fostering mutually beneficial economic cooperation in the region.

Bharat 6G vision document is prepared by the Technology Innovation Group on 6G (TIG-6G) that was constituted in November 2021 with members from various Ministries/Departments, research and development institutions, academia, standardization bodies, Telecom Service Providers and industry to develop a roadmap and action plans for 6G in India.

6G Test Bed will provide academic institutions, industries, start-ups, MSMEs etc. a platform to test and validate the evolving ICT technologies.

The Bharat 6G Vision Document and 6G Test Bed will provide an enabling environment for innovation, capacity building and faster technology adoption in the country.

In addition, the prime minister inaugurated India's first Area Office & Innovation Centre of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). ITU is the United Nations (UN) specialised agency for information and communication technologies (ICT).

India will also host the ITU's next World Telecommunication Standardisation Assembly next year. The newly established office will aid the ITU in coordinating more effectively with India and other countries in the region, as per the ITU Secretary-General, Doreen Bogdan-Martin.