Empowering people should be the objective of govt: Sibal

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said a government policy should not look at enhancing treasury and empowering common man should be its only objective. "Government should not be looking for enhancing, filling up their pockets ... government should be looking at empowering people so that they can fill their pockets. That has to be the objective and policy of the government," Sibal said at an Assocham event.

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He added if the government is able to reach to the man on street through its policy decisions, then the policy is right. "But if it is only going to enhance what is there in the treasury, then obviously there is something wrong with the policy," he said. Stating that half of the Indian population still does not have mobile phones, Sibal said, "There are 960 million-odd mobile phones in this country and we tom tom about the figure to the rest of the world. But the fact of the matter is, its about 650-700 million mobile users in the country."

"So there is enormous opportunity...forget about 3G, there is enough opportunity for 2G," Sibal added. He said there is a need for developing an industry to manufacture the right devices which is the second imperative as networks are of no use in the absence of devices. "If we are going to import devices at heavy costs, then the dream we have to empower rural India will not be realised," he said. Sibal added there is a need to give enormous encouragement and create the right kind of space for manufacturing industry to be able to connect the information to the device.