tech2 News Staff

In the past couple of months, a lot has been said and written about net neutrality in India. Now, news has it that the government may not allow zero-rating plans in India. Citing a senior official from the telecom department, an Economic Times report reveals that the government may disallow zero-rating plans in its final policy, but with the exemption of certain government services aimed at education and health.

A six-member panel, headed by AK Bhargava, has been set up to submit a report by month-end. Though the committee is yet to submit the final report, the members are looking to define Net Neutrality in the Indian context. "The committee's current thinking is that any definition of net neutrality must maintain core principles, which is not to allow blocking, prioritisation and throttling of content providers on a network," adds the report.

However, it shouldn't 'be at cross-purposes with the government's policy', another official told the news site. This means services like e-governance inline with Digital India plan would be delivered on preferential basis.

The telecom commission will then examine the report along with recommendations from Trai. However, like Ravi Shankar Prasad said earlier, Trai can only make recommendations, but the final call will be taken by the government.

DoT committee has reportedly met more than 45 organisations including Facebook, Google, Flipkart, Amazon, Cleartrip, Paytm, Viber and Skype along with telco providers in the last few months.

Some members have put forth presentation to the telecom minister explaining rules on net neutrality worldwide and many believe that zero rating plans will lead to discrimination. They believe that with zero rating plans some websites and apps will be favoured and others may suffer. Needless to say, over 11 lakh emails have been sent to Trai already opposing zero rating apps.

"Net neutrality needs to be understood in the context of the lay user of the Internet in India. Any enhancement of billing for a lay Internet or mobile user is not only going to intrinsically harm the financial interests of the Indian consumer but could also impact the further penetration of Internet apart from prejudicially impacting the confidence and trust that users have in the Internet regulation regime. Net Neutrality, if not handled properly, could prejudicially impact the Digital India Programme of the Indian Government," Pavan Duggal, Advocate, Supreme Court of India, is Asia’s & India’s leading expert and authority on Cyberlaw & Mobile Law had earlier told Firstpost.

Earlier this month, DoT secretary Rakesh Garg tells Business Standard in an interview that Airtel Zero violates net neutrality. We’ve also been hearing about how Trai isn’t really buying Facebook’s Internet.org or Airtel Zero programs and DoT is also batting for net neutrality.

Airtel had created quite a stir with its new Zero marketing platform. However, massive outrage forced its partner Flipkart to walk out of Airtel Zero. Soon companies like Cleartrip and NDTV walked out of Facebook’s Internet.org, a platform almost similar to Airtel Zero.

Facebook has now come up with an ‘open’ Internet.org platform for all developers in India, which has already received flak for bring the same old rules in a new package. Nikhil Pahwa of Medianama writes, “No matter what Facebook says about Internet.org being a means of promoting Internet usage, it isn’t. It’s a fundamental, permanent change in the way the Internet works by splitting it into free vs paid access."