India needs more telecom unicorns, says DoT secretary Neeraj Mittal
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With the Union Cabinet approving the ₹1 lakh crore research, development, and innovation (RDI) scheme, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is hopeful that it will provide a much-needed boost to telecom startups in the country.Neeraj Mittal, secretary, DoT, told ET on the sidelines of an event in Bengaluru on Tuesday that the department looks forward to working closely with the scheme and startups. The scheme aims to scale up research, development, and innovation in sunrise domains and sectors critical to economic security, strategic interests, and self-reliance.'Deep tech is essential for the country's growth. The only difference between deep tech and tech is that you need patient capital, and telecom would fall in that category for various reasons,' Mittal said.During his address at the Matrix Global Summit 2025 on 6G technology , the DoT Secretary also noted that while telecom may not be an easy space to innovate in, the government is attempting to reduce the risk through the Telecom Technology Development Fund (TTDF), particularly in the early stages. He added that India needs several unicorns in the telecom space.With the department targeting at least 10% of global patents in 6G technology ahead of the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2027, Mittal said, 'There are more expectations from institutions that patents will come from them, from research faculties, IITs, NITs, and all these institutions which are participating. We have a call for proposals on 6G, and we hope that it will result in a lot of papers.'During a similar discussion, Reliance Jio 's senior vice president, Satish Jamadagni, underscored that despite building a homegrown 5G stack, true export viability hinges on domestic chip production. Simply having a cost advantage will not 'help in selling,' he said.'When we missed the 4G bandwagon and jumped straight to 5G, the projected technology isn't yet at its best. When we talk about exporting a 5G stack, if you don't make the chip in the country, it's not really selling,' he added.
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