Union Minister of Communications, Jyotiraditya M. Scindia represented India at the high-level Executive Roundtable at the 25th edition of the Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) 2025, held in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in September 2025. The theme at GSR-25 was “Regulation for Sustainable Digital Development”. In his virtual address, the minister highlighted India’s role as a global model of regulatory transformation. Edited excerpts from his address…
For over two decades, the GSR has stood as a beacon of collaboration that has guided nations across continents towards a world that is not just connected but also inclusive, sustainable and resilient. This year’s theme, “Regulation for Sustainable Digital Development”, conveys the essence of what the key requirements are through our digital carriageway in the world today. The question before us today is, what will it take for regulators to be ecosystem builders? It urges us to rise above the role of mere overseers and to embrace the mantle of architects, custodians and enablers of tomorrow’s digital societies.
In India, digital transformation is not an abstract concept confined to boardrooms or business districts; it is a lived reality that is etched into the lives of our 1.4 billion citizens. With the promulgation of the Telecommunications Act, 2023, we have ushered in a forward-looking framework attuned to the age of artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity and satellite communications. With the Telecom Cyber Security Rules, 2024 we built safeguards that instil resilience and trust in an interconnected age.
India’s growing digital prowess
5G today covers 99.99 per cent of the districts in our country. We have over 300 million users and the highest per capita data consumption in the world. We have about 475,000 mobile towers and are setting up about 100 dedicated 5G use case labs across all our IT and engineering institutions in the country.
India is no longer just a vast market for technology; it has firmly positioned itself as a global co-creator. Our standing among the top six nations in 6G patent filing testifies to this transformation, establishing that India’s digital rise is not about connectivity alone but also about shaping the very frontier of technological innovation.
When we say we are building a trillion-dollar digital economy, I do believe that telecom is the engine that is driving those ambitions. By 2028, we hope to reach that figure. We aim to contribute 12 per cent to the country’s GDP and employ more than 14 million people with a productivity that is nearly five times higher than the rest of the economy. From information and communication technology services and electronic manufacturing to digital platforms and the digitalisation of traditional sectors such as banking, retail and education, telecom’s impact is both deep and pervasive.
By 2029-30, our digital economy is projected to contribute close to 20 per cent to the gross value addition, surpassing agriculture and manufacturing. This will be driven by AI, cloud and the rise of global capability centres, of which India already hosts more than 50 per cent in the world. We are also promoting open radio access network, private 5G, AI-driven networks and secure internet of things ecosystems. We are also nurturing a fertile ground where start-ups, enterprises and academia can converge to script this digital future together.
Regulation as a critical enabler of transformation
As regulators, we no longer stand as gatekeepers at the periphery of the industry but at its very heart, shaping that transformation. Regulation should not be, and is not, a fence to restrict; it is a garden to be nurtured, and we are its gardeners. In my opinion, the way in which we balance the promise of AI, encourage innovation to bloom, prune misuse before it spreads and cultivate resilience is what endures. And I think ensuring that AI flourishes without endangering society is extremely key today.
Designing regulatory sandboxes allows bold ideas to be tested safely before scaling and embracing universal access as a collective responsibility. India has an institution called Digital Bharat Nidhi, which ensures 100 per cent saturation so that no community is left behind. It demonstrates how regulators can lay the foundation of growth and empowerment for billions, offering lessons to the world.
There are many other successful platforms in India. The first is Aadhaar, a biometric digital ID that serves as a recognition mechanism to deliver government programmes directly into beneficiaries’ accounts. In 2024-25, direct benefit transfers were close to $81 billion, which was all done digitally at the click of a button.
The second innovation is UPI and UPI Lite. India conducts about 19 billion UPI transactions per month and about $232 billion per year, transferring close to $2.8 trillion across the platform. Meanwhile, UPI Lite offers faster online payment options for small transactions. By 2029, we are looking at the expansion of UPI to about 20 countries.
The third is DigiLocker, an account aggregator and a cloud-based platform with close to 570 million subscribers. It provides a personal vault for digital documents. About $15 billion worth of loans have been sanctioned through the account aggregator.
Learnings along the way
So, what are the messages and learnings for us as a country? The first, as a regulator, is to ensure that we prioritise interoperability and open standards. We must put in place the carriageway and allow private players to innovate on top of those public rails.
The second is to build inclusion and trust, which requires a strong regulatory framework. To this end, we have put in place the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. It emphasises user privacy, consent and data fiduciary obligations, and establishes a legal foundation for handling personal data and digital public infrastructure systems.
The third is encouraging public-private collaboration. We must adopt a co-creation mindset, bringing all stakeholders to the table and allowing them to operate in this new environment. This involves sandbox environments, pilot projects and iterative regulatory adjustments – approaches that balance innovation with safeguards.
And finally, we must maintain a high degree of agility in governance. We are all aware that technology moves way faster than regulation. Therefore, to be able to maintain regulatory agility, we must move with the times, move with technology. For instance, over the past 10 years alone, we have introduced more than 11 regulations to make sure that we develop and promote UPI and other technologies in India.
Regulating AI
I believe that AI should be inclusive – it should serve the farmer seeking better access to technology for crops, the student attending classes virtually, and patient in need of healthcare. Above all, AI must advance societal good, and that remains our resolve in India.
The “India AI Mission” launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2024, with a budget of close to $1.2 billion, aims to create computing capacity while fostering safe and trusted AI and building innovation capabilities within India.
In terms of a successful policy as far as AI is concerned, there will be four key attributes. First, it must be inclusive – exemplified by Bhashini, the national language translation platform that uses AI to translate all Indian regional languages. Second, AI should be ethical and safe by design, as reflected in the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s five-point AI/machine learning rulebook for capital markets. The third is to encourage open and collaborative innovation, enabled through open-source platforms, which we are pushing in India. The fourth, AI requires global cooperation – we need to come together as a global village.
Overcoming challenges
With these opportunities also come challenges for us as regulators. For one, spectrum is costly and is fragmented. Infrastructure growth is sometimes slowed by right-of-way issues and low fiberisation. We must rationalise spectrum costs, harmonise bands to unlock affordability and efficiency, accelerate tower fiberisation to provide the backbone for next-generation connectivity, and at the same time push ahead with indigenous 6G research and development to secure technological leadership. Further, cyber threats are intensifying, and regulations are constantly evolving. In this dynamic environment, it is key to move forward cautiously, yet with deliberate and sure steps.
If this is the challenge we face and the journey that we must embark upon, I think this demands deeper global collaboration to shape agile and inclusive regulatory frameworks. It also requires the creation of regulatory sandboxes to safely nurture frontier technology. And finally, it calls for the adoption of digital consumer charters to ensure fairness, transparency and trust – three attributes that must remain the cornerstone of the digital age.
In conclusion, I am reminded of a timeless truth: the future will be governed not by rigidity but by vision, and not by control but by trust. In this journey, we will not merely build networks – we will build nations and foster a global village.
“Technology moves way faster than regulation. Therefore, to be able to maintain regulatory agility, we must move with the times, move with technology.”
