Telecom licences amended; stiff penalty for security breach

New Delhi, Jul 28 (PTI) Amid security concerns relating
to telecom equipment, particularly from China, the Indian
government Wednesday made it mandatory for suppliers to share
the password and design details and said heavy penalty would
be imposed on operators if any security breach was detected.
Amending the telecom licences, it said, "The licensor
shall have the power to allow inspection, analysis and use by
the competent experts designated by the government, the
hardware and software designs/codes deposited in the Escrow
accounts to prevent/detect any security hazards, malware,
traps at any time or for any criminal investigation purpose."
In the event any security breach was detected after
deployment/installation of equipment as a result of security
audit, the relevant equipment supplied by the vendor shall be
taken out of service and a penalty of Rs 50 crore for each
purchase order shall be imposed on the operator.
In addition, a penalty of 100 per cent of contract value
shall be levied by the government on the operator. This, some
vendors said, would be passed on to them as per the agreement
between suppliers and operators.
The licensor (DoT) may also at its discretion blacklist
the vendor from making any supply deals with Indian operators,
according to the amendment.
It has also asked the operators to work towards a phased
plan to take over the maintenance of the equipment locally,
meaning therby, the operation and maintenance of the networks
shall be entirely by Indian engineers and dependence on
foreign engineers shall be minimal or almost nil within a
period of two years from now.
The telecom operators and the equipment suppliers did
not offer any comment immediately saying they would study its
impact before reacting.
Some vendors, however, said that it would at least put
business back on track as no purchase order was placed by any
operator for last more than six months. PTI