Do more for digitization

India needs to further accelerate its digitization programme which is a way forward to create job opportunities and employment as well as sharing of media content in the country, says an industry expert.

“The government is doing a great job on digitization and a few more such initiatives can accelerate growth and employment generation,” said #Ashish Pherwani, a partner for advisory services at #Ernst & Young in Mumbai.

“But more should be done. Otherwise young Indians will be losing jobs to automation and robotics processing,” he cautioned on the changing trends being created by the fast-pace disruptive technologies.

An accelerated digitization pace will benefit all economic sectors including media, education and health.

He noted paced-up investment plans among telcos and smart-phone manufacturers.

“There are plans for #Doordarshan to move from analogue to digital transmission, which will free up spectrum that can be made available to the telecoms and customers,” observed Pherwani.

But there is an urgent need to bring down fees linked to broad-band/internet services. #”Digital India” is among the government’s main initiatives.

Fees and charges for India’s internet services are much higher than many other countries in the world, he pointed out.

He calls for further cut in fee charges for broad-band/internet, making it competitive and cost effective for people to switch to the much faster and flexible Over The Top (OTT) services which has a huge potential of reaching out to India’s younger generation.

A media professional, Pherwani believes young Indians would change their life-style through OTT services by 2020.

“By 2019-20, we expect smart phones to significantly increase content consumption via OTT. But there is also need to balance the parity between cable rates and digital rates,” he said.

Given telcos’ capital-driven programmes, he expects the parity between cable and digital rates by 2022-23, which is a bit longer than the global trends seen by developed countries.

“This is good but it should be brought forward as India emerges the world’s fastest smart phone penetration market,” stressed Pherwani.

This is happening through the increases in manufacturing of smart phones under the #“Make in India” initiative, supported by the young consumer with pent-up demand for media through electronic devices, he stressed. fii-news.com