Start-Ups Rally For Continuation Of Telecom R&D Finance Scheme By DoT: Report

Start-ups have insisted that the government should not stop the Digital Communication Innovation Square (DCIS) scheme midway and mentioned that this would hamper their ongoing research and development (R&D) work around telecom innovation, as per a report by Monecontrol. 

Launched by the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) in 2021, the scheme provides financial assistance to start-ups for prototype development, product trials, market entry, proof of concept, and commercialisation. In essence, the scheme offers domestic design-led telecom in the private sector cash support for research and development. 

The grants of this scheme have not been released in the last six months by the Department of Telecommunication to certain companies, as per the report. Voice of Indian Communication Technology Enterprises (VoICE), a society, in a letter to telecom secretary Neeraj Mittal, said, as per the report, “If the DCIS support is stopped, it may kill our R&D initiatives for all time. We request that the scheme not be discontinued midway, as product development activities of more than 50 companies will be negatively hit and companies will feel disheartened and discouraged from working on government-led R&D schemes in the future." 

VoICE is a coalition of many new start-ups and Indian-registered firms seeking to provide design-led solutions covering 4G, 5G, the Internet of Things, and machine-to-machine use cases based on Indian IPR. 

Inventum, Infinity Labs, Lekha Wireless, Nivetti Systems, Amantya, Astrome, and Priyaraja Electronics are among the smaller businesses that VoICE represents, in addition to larger corporations like Tejas Networks, Sterlite Technologies Limited, HFCL, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). 

For the financial sector ending in May, the scheme had 66 start-ups that included companies such as Resonous, Lekha Wireless Astrome, Coral Telecom, Amantya Technologies, and Signaltron. 

The government was subsidising start-ups up to Rs 50 lakh and micro, small, and medium-sized businesses up to Rs 2 crore under the initiative; the maximum amount could be up to Rs 10 crore depending on the project. One factor that is making the DoT consider the closure of the scheme is that many start-ups have become profitable by now, as per the report. 

Meanwhile, as per a report by the Economic Times, funding under the DCIS is likely to continue. As per the report, a source said, “The government and the Department of Telecommunications will continue to support the telecom startups. But the form or scheme (DCIS) may change.”