NEW DELHI: Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha has said that India is gearing up for introducing 5G and could well lead global subscriptions to the next generation technology along with North America by 2022.Speaking at an industry event Thursday, Sinha added that the government’s next telecom policy will take into account future trends when data will drive the industry more than voice, given the surging usage of broadband amid growing penetration of smartphones.“We need to think of and prepare for an ecosystem where Internet of Things ( IoT ) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are mainstream, and connectivity is seamless, designed to improve the quality of e-governance and education, as well as to enable financial inclusion, smart cities, and an intelligent transportation system amongst other things,” Sinha said.“5G will speed up the digital transformation in a number of industries, enabling new use cases in areas such as IoT (Internet of Things), automation, transport and big data,” he added.The Indian government has already started work to introduce 5G technology in India. The telecom department recently asked the telecom regulator to suggest the starting price for 5G airwaves in the 3400 MHz to 3600 MHz bands, which could make their debut in the next auctions.“The need of the hour is to ramp up for the Digital era,” Sinha said.He said that whether it is broadband spectrum, Internet adoption or availability, data protection, or cyber security, what was applicable five years back was no more relevant in today’s context, and new policies will need to be futuristic.“They will also need to be capable of dealing with India’s challenges and figuring out ways to deal with those challenges,” Sinha said.Given this, broadband assumes critical importance to India and the world to ensure digital connectivity which will lead to higher productivity as is proven in many a developed economy.“It enhances commerce, improves banking facilities, improves administrative facilities and empowers the public as a whole. Broadband development is the cornerstone of Digital India and every Indian and remotest location will be empowered through the Digital India initiative,” he said.According to a study by ICRIER and Broadband India Forum released Thursday, an increase of 17% internet traffic in India had contributed to an increase of Rs 7 lakh crore in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country, thereby contributing 5.6% to India’s GDP in 2015-16.By 2020, this contribution is expected to grow to 16% or Rs 36 lakh crores, half of which will be driven by apps, the study predicted.The study suggested that a 10% increase in global internet traffic delivers on average a 1.3% increase in global GDP. An increase of 10% in the global mobile internet traffic would lead to 0.7% increase in global GDP.Interestingly, apps contributed a minimum of Rs 1357.6 billion in the year 2015-16 to India’s GDP.“Today, apps are contributing 70% to the mobile traffic,” said Rajat Kathuria, Director and Chief Executive, ICRIER while explaining the study.The findings of the study suggested that the Internet economy could contribute up to $537.4 billion to India’s GDP in 2020, of which a minimum of $270.9 billion would be contributed by apps.