The talk of the town is Internet of Things (IoT) and the advances it has pushed in every sector has given us amenities like Smart Homes, Connected Cars and more. Many industries including startups and MNCs have already enrolled to adopt the IoT system. When something is so popular, then why wouldn’t its pixie dust fall upon the Indian Government?
As the formation of a new Government taken place, it has also announced the various policies that it will be pushing for the next 5 years. One such policy that was announced was the Internet of Things (IoT) Policy.
The IoT is not a new thing in this century, but it may be new to the newly formed Government of our country. We are not talking about just connected gadgets and stuff like that, but the implementation of IoT on a larger scale, which will include and affect almost the whole country.
Internet of Things (IoT) is an uninterrupted connected network of embedded objects/ devices, with identifiers, including M2M communication without any human intervention using standard and communication protocols.
The Government’s vision is: “To develop connected and smart IoT based system for our country’s economy, society, environment and global needs.” Looking at the Government’s steps to adopt IoT, they mainly involve “developing 100 smart cities in the country and the launch of the Digital India Program of the Government.”- This will help in boosting the IoT industry as well as revolutionize the technology enabling connected devices. Many MNCs, Startups and Government bodies have been merged together for this process.
Objectives:
- To create an IoT industry in India of USD 15 billion by 2020.
- To develop IoT products specific to Indian needs in the domains of agriculture, health, water quality, natural disasters, transportation, security, automotive, supply chain management, smart cities, automated metering and monitoring of utilities, waste management, oil & gas) etc.
- To undertake capacity development (Human & Technology) for IoT specific skill-sets for domestic and international markets.
- To undertake Research & development for all the assisting technologies.
For fulfilling their objective they have set policies and these all are embedded in so called “PILLARS of IoT”. It includes 5 vertical pillars naming Demonstration Centres, Capacity Building & Incubation, R&D and Innovation, Incentives and Engagements, Human Resource Development. It also includes 2 horizontal Pillars naming Standards & Governance structure.
Pillars of IoT:
a) Demonstration Centre: It will include building, smart grid, industrial monitoring, agriculture, smart cities, healthcare, connected homes, telematics and supply chain, safety and security, forest and wildlife, automotive, natural disasters, etc.
- Smart City: The concept of Smart Lighting, Smart traffic management, Smart building, Smart parking, WI-Fi Internet access & City Surveillance, Solid Waste Management, Smart Metering, Water Quality, water clogging management in cities, etc. will be implemented in the selected cites.
- Smart Water: The concept of Potable water monitoring, detecting real-time leakages and wastes of factories in rivers and other natural water bodies. The monitoring of water level variations in rivers, dams and reservoirs, for proactive disaster management will also be implemented.
- Smart Environment: Setting up of alarm for CO2 emission from factories and pollution from vehicles
- Smart Healthcare: Setting up connected medical equipment for better health care facilities even in remote areas.
- Smart Waste management: A “Swach Bharat” Initiative comprising of solar-powered trash receptacle and trash compactor that alerts sanitation crews of municipal authorities, when it is full.
- Smart Agriculture: Monitoring online temperature of grain from farmers and receiving alerts on high temperature.
- Smart Safety: It includes safety wearables for women, children and old people.
- Smart Supply Chain and Logistics: Upgradation of old logistics facilities to a connected digital version for supplying food and health medicines in naturally affected areas like floods and earthquakes. It also includes universal ambulance service at any place using any kind of device.
b) Capacity Building & Incubation: Under this program government will fund to create Resource Centres & Test-beds as a common experimental facility supporting heterogeneity in IoT domain to help the community to experiment IoT devices and applications by combining various IoT technologies.
NASCOM Inc. has been partnered for fulfilling out the policy.
c) R&D and innovation: This will include setting up a Research and Development Centre for IoT for developing new products based on IoT and that can use according to the India needs. This will also include IoT related R&D projects with an international partnership project named “International IoT Research Collaboration scheme (IIRC)”.
d) Incentives and Engagements: To promote Venture funding of the Electronic Development Fund specifically directed to support companies in it. The projects will be in the form of low/ Zero cost funding of eligible projects. There are many incentives which have been provided by the government like IoT developmental Centre can be set-up anywhere in India, Imports of capital goods/ raw materials related to its products gets the duty benefit of up-to 100% and developing IoT centres space & Internet would be made available at subsidized rates. There are many more incentives included with this.
Engagements include: Engagements of IEEE Committee as a High level advisory committee would help interface with various IoT attached industries and track the progress of IoT in the country.
e) Human Resource Development: Its main aim is to develop IoT Education and Awareness program in DeitY for developing skill sets for IoT at all levels like certification courses, IoT education exchange Programs, Co operations between Government and educational Institute etc.
The above sections were part of vertical Pillars, now we focus on the horizontal pillars which includes the following:
- Standards: There are certain standards, which have been followed by the Government to facilitate global and national participation of industry, and research bodies for promoting standards around IoT technologies developed in the country. These standards mainly related to Cloud, Energy Consumption, Safety, Security, data creation, data traceability, etc. There are certain other standard technology like Network, Architectural, Communication and Identification etc. also for constructing expert committee for developing and adopting IoT technologies.
- Governance Structure: This section is committed to the Government committees that will be included within this policy. This will include Advisory Committee, Governance Committee and Program Management Unit.
With the advancement of technology at a high pace, the Government has to implement the policy at the same pace just to keep up. Hope the policy on the paper transforms into a new developed India in the coming years.
Link to Draft on IoT: http://deity.gov.in/content/draft-internet-thingsiot-policy
