Title: Emerging ICTs increasingly need policy convergence: an account of ICT policy convergence in India

Authors: Brajesh Mishra

Addresses: School of Public Policy & Governance, Management Development Institute Gurgaon, Gurugram, Haryana, India

Abstract: The study presents an account of ICT policy convergence in India. It emphasises the increasing importance of policy convergence in facilitating technology-led growth. The study aims to unravel how the ICT policy convergence has fared, especially in wake of the ICT convergence in India. While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India regulates telecom and a few aspects of the broadcasting sector, the IT sector largely remains unregulated. The ICT policy convergence has taken a back seat and continues to exist in India largely in a label form. The study adopts a qualitative case study and uses the policy process perspective as a conceptual framework. The time taken for the ICT policy reforms to catch up with technological changes is considerably long. The ICT convergence may help better understand various challenges, conflicts, and policy gaps and for synergising efforts made to address them.

Keywords: information communication technology; ICT; policy convergence; Telecom Regulatory Authority of India; TRAI; policy process; regulatory governance; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJITCC.2023.132833

International Journal of Information Technology, Communications and Convergence, 2023 Vol.4 No.2, pp.109 - 123

Received: 25 Apr 2021
Accepted: 03 Feb 2022
Published online: 11 Aug 2023 *

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