Text of PM’s address at the inauguration of 10th edition of the India Mobile Congress

1. At a Glance

• What it is: The Prime Minister's speech opening the 10th edition of the India Mobile Congress (IMC) on 8 October 2026. The year's theme is "Scale without boundaries" [1][2].
• Main argument: Telecom is more than networks, spectrum and towers. In India, the mobile phone has become a tool of good governance and the centre of the Digital India vision, used to make technology available to everyone [1].
• Why it matters for UPSC: One speech covers digital public infrastructure, the digital divide, 5G rollout, DBT, DIKSHA, Make in India and India's global role in telecom. This maps to GS-II (e-governance) and GS-III (infrastructure, S&T).

2. Why in the News

• PM inaugurated IMC 2026, the 10th edition, on 8 October 2026, which is also Air Force Day [1].
• India was chosen to host the GSMA Board meeting this year. Telecom operators, industry leaders, academics and start-ups from around the world attended [1].
• The PM said that on 7 October 2026 he completed 25 years as "Head of the Government". The anniversary coincides with 10 years of IMC [1].
• The theme "Scale without boundaries" was unveiled by Union Communications Minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia. IMC 2026 runs 7–10 October 2026, New Delhi [2].

3. Background & Evolution

• 2015: Digital India programme launched. It treats digital infrastructure as a core utility for every citizen, aims to bridge the digital divide and to deliver governance on demand [3].
• 2017: First India Mobile Congress, launched under Communications Minister Manoj Sinha. It is organised by COAI, with DoT as the nodal ministry [4].
• 2022: 5G launched in India from the IMC stage [1].
• 2023: 7th edition, inaugurated by the PM [5]. Message: "5G Roll-out → 5G Reach-out" [1].
• 2024: Theme "The Future is Now" [6]. The ITU was present, and the speech stressed global standards for the digital world [1].
• 2025: 9th edition, theme "Innovate to Transform" [7]. Held 8–11 October 2025, Yashobhoomi Convention Centre, New Delhi [8]. Focus: Invest, Innovate and Make in India [1]. PM: the country that "once struggled with 2G" now has 5G in nearly every district [9].
• 2026: 10th edition, theme "Scale without boundaries" [2]. The speech says 5G now reaches every district [1].

4. Core Static Facts

Item	Fact
Event	India Mobile Congress (IMC), described as "Asia's premier telecom & tech event" [8]
Organisers	DoT + Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) [4][8]
Nodal ministry	Department of Telecommunications (Ministry of Communications) [4][2]
Union Minister present (2026)	Jyotiraditya M. Scindia; MoS Chandrasekhar Pemmasani [1]
First edition	2017 [4]
10th edition dates	7–10 Oct 2026, New Delhi [2]
2026 theme	Scale without boundaries [2]
5G base stations	More than 5.5 lakh [1]
5G reach	Every district of India [1]
Mobile internet speed	10× higher than in 2022 [1]
DBT transfers	About ₹50 lakh crore sent directly to beneficiaries [1]
DIKSHA (to July 2022)	500 crore+ learning sessions; about 6,000 crore learning minutes [1]
Digital education target	Connect about 25 crore students through digital/online platforms [1]
IMC 2025 scale (projected)	1.5 lakh+ visitors, 150+ countries, 400+ exhibitors, 7,000+ delegates [8]

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Social / Equity

• About ten years ago, the digital divide was making modern technology a privilege of those who could afford it. Digital India put the mobile phone at the centre to make technology available to all [1].
• Linguistic and geographic diversity used to make access hard. Banks and hospitals were mostly in cities, and government offices sat at block or district level, so citizens spent time and money to reach them. Mobile connectivity has reduced this [1].
• Children in remote villages and poor families now get quality learning content through DIKSHA [1].

Governance / Administrative

• Hundreds of government services are now on mobile phones. DBT sends benefits straight to beneficiaries, about ₹50 lakh crore so far [1].
• During COVID, digital connectivity kept education, health, payments and government services running. Offices and banks stayed open [1].
• The stated aim is Ease of Living: cheaper data and devices bringing citizens into public services [1].

Economic

• Telecom-sector reforms, infrastructure expansion and a push to manufacture phones and telecom hardware in India are presented as the reasons data and devices became cheap [1].
• IMC 2025's agenda of Invest, Innovate, Make in India ties telecom to industrial policy [1].

Scientific / Technological

• 5G moved from launch in 2022 to every district by 2026, with more than 5.5 lakh base stations and 10× faster speeds [1].
• DoT and ITU jointly hosted the "Robotics for Good Youth Challenge India 2025" at IMC 2025 [10].

Geopolitical / Strategic

• The ITU's presence (2024) and India hosting the GSMA Board (2026) show India moving into global telecom standard-setting and governance [1].
• India runs a Bharat Pavilion at Mobile World Congress 2026, Barcelona [11].

6. Recent Developments (last 12–18 months)

• 8–11 Oct 2025: IMC 2025, the 9th edition, themed "Innovate to Transform" [7][8].
• Oct 2025: DoT and ITU hosted the Robotics for Good Youth Challenge India 2025 at IMC [10].
• Early 2026: Scindia led India's delegation and opened the Bharat Pavilion at MWC 2026, Barcelona [11].
• 2026: IMC 2026 theme "Scale without boundaries" unveiled [2].
• 8 Oct 2026: PM inaugurated the 10th IMC; GSMA Board meeting hosted in India [1].

7. Prelims Hooks

• India Mobile Congress was first held in 2017 [4].
• IMC is organised by DoT and COAI [4][8].
• The 10th edition of IMC took place in 2026, 7–10 October, New Delhi [2].
• IMC 2026 theme: "Scale without boundaries" [2].
• IMC 2025 theme: "Innovate to Transform" [7].
• IMC 2024 theme: "The Future is Now" [6].
• IMC 2025 venue: Yashobhoomi Convention Centre, New Delhi [8].
• 5G was launched in India in 2022 from the IMC stage [1].
• India has more than 5.5 lakh 5G base stations, and 5G is in every district [1].
• DBT has sent about ₹50 lakh crore directly to beneficiaries [1].
• DIKSHA recorded 500 crore+ learning sessions and about 6,000 crore learning minutes up to July 2022 [1].
• Digital India was launched in 2015 [3].
• India was chosen to host the GSMA Board meeting in 2026 [1].
• 8 October is Indian Air Force Day [1].

8. 5G in Every District Does Not Mean Working Internet in Every Village

• "Every district" is a district-level claim, not a village-level one
• The speech says 5G reaches every district [1]. A district can have 5G towers in its towns while its villages still depend on slow or broken links.

• In villages, the real backbone is BharatNet, the scheme to lay optical fibre (high-speed cable) to about 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats [12].

• BharatNet hit 96.7% only after its target was made smaller

• By November 2025, 2.19 lakh Gram Panchayats were "service ready" [12]. This means the line is laid and could be switched on. It does not prove anyone is using it.

• That is 96.70% of a revised scope of 2.26 lakh, not of the original ~2.5 lakh [12].

• The work ran years late almost everywhere

• By November 2025, only six States (seven telecom Circles) were 100% service ready [12].
• Delays were two to six years under every implementation model [12].

• DoT blamed the scale of the project, hard terrain and slow Right of Way clearances (permission to dig along roads and land) [12].

• Even laid fibre often does not work

• Cuts and faults in the fibre caused about 48% of the cases where the network was down [12].
• The average MTTR (Mean Time to Restore, meaning how long a fault takes to repair) was 17 days [12].
• A village that loses its connection for over two weeks cannot rely on it for DBT, online classes or telemedicine.

9. When the Phone Works but the Payment Still Fails

• The strongest objection: digital-first delivery shuts out the people who are weakest
• The speech presents DBT as clean and direct: about ₹50 lakh crore paid straight to beneficiaries [1].

• Critics say the extra digital steps (Aadhaar seeding, bank-account linking, app-based attendance) create new ways for the poorest to lose money they are owed.

• Parliament's own committee found this happening in MGNREGA

• In February 2022, the Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj found that wages were badly delayed [13].

• The main reason was failed payments, caused by (i) inactive Aadhaar and (ii) bank accounts that were closed, blocked or frozen [13].

• The gaps were still there in later years

• As of November 2023, 14% of job card holders were not Aadhaar-enabled, so they could not use Aadhaar-based payment [14].
• Workers struggled with KYC (identity checks the bank needs) and with linking bank accounts to Aadhaar [14].

• Many could not mark attendance on the NMMS (National Mobile Monitoring System, an app that records attendance at the worksite). So they were not paid for work they had already done [14].

• What the objection gets right, and where it goes too far

• It is right that a technology failure now becomes a payment failure. The worker cannot fix it alone, and often cannot even see why the money did not arrive [13][14].
• It goes too far if it says DBT itself is the problem. The committee did not ask for DBT to be scrapped. It asked for backup ways to verify identity and for paper pay slips [13][14].
• Mains answers should keep both points: digital delivery cuts out middlemen, but it needs a non-digital fallback for people the system cannot read.

10. What the Data Says the Digital Divide Looks Like Now

• For young people, access is no longer the main gap
• In 2025, 97.1% of people aged 15–29 had used a mobile phone in the last three months [15].
• Rural (96.8%) and urban (97.6%) use is almost the same [15].

• So the speech's "privilege of a few" problem [1] is largely solved for this age group.

• The gap now is in the internet and the smartphone, and it follows gender

• Rural internet use, ages 15–24: 95.7% of males vs 91.1% of females [15].
• Among people 15+ who own a phone, 75.6% of rural women own a smartphone, compared with 89.4% of urban men [15].

• Most government apps, DIKSHA and app-based attendance need a smartphone, not a basic phone.

• About one household in seven still has no smartphone

• 85.5% of households have at least one smartphone [15]. The rest cannot use most of the "hundreds of services" the speech lists [1].

• In homes that share one phone, the person who controls it decides who else gets to use it.

• The youth figures tell us little about older people

• The usage numbers above cover ages 15–29 and 15–24 only [15].

• Pensioners and older farmers rely most on DBT, yet these figures do not show how well they are connected.

• India is not alone in this

• The World Bank estimates that women in South Asia are 38% less likely than men to own a mobile phone [16].

11. What Should Follow: Fixing the Last Mile, Not Only Adding Towers

• DoT should measure BharatNet by use, not only by cable laid
• "Service ready" counts lines that could be switched on. It does not count uptime or users [12].

• Average repair time (17 days) and the share of downtime caused by fibre cuts (48%) should be tracked and published [12]. Without this, a village counted as "connected" can be offline for weeks.

• DoT and States should clear Right of Way faster

• DoT itself told CAG that slow Right of Way permissions were a reason for the delays [12].

• States control most roads and land, so a 6G-ready plan depends on their cooperation as much as on the Centre's spending.

• The Department of Rural Development should keep a non-digital backup for payments

• The Standing Committee recommended other ways to verify identity besides Aadhaar [13][14].
• It asked that Aadhaar not be mandatory until the system is foolproof, and that paper pay slips be used for beneficiaries who cannot use the technology [13][14].

• The same rule fits any DBT scheme: if the app fails, the worker should still be paid.

• The next MoSPI telecom survey should report older people and smartphone skills

• The 2025 survey shows youth are almost fully connected [15]. What policy most needs now is data on the groups that the youth averages leave out.

12. Anchors for Answers

• Data: BharatNet service-ready in 2.19 lakh GPs (96.70%) against a revised scope of 2.26 lakh, Nov 2025; fibre faults repaired in an average of 17 days [12]
• Data: 85.5% of Indian households own at least one smartphone; among rural phone owners aged 15+, 75.6% of women vs 79.2% of men own a smartphone (CMS: Telecom, 2025) [15]
• Report/Committee: CAG Performance Audit of BharatNet, Report No. 19 of 2026 (period 2017-18 to 2022-23) [12]
• Report/Committee: Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Critical Evaluation of MGNREGA, February 2022: wage delays caused by inactive Aadhaar and frozen bank accounts [13]
• Law/Case: Telecommunications Act, 2023: the new legal framework for telecom, including Right of Way, which CAG names as a cause of BharatNet's delays [12]
• Comparison: World Bank: women in South Asia are 38% less likely than men to own a mobile phone, so India's gender gap is part of a wider regional pattern [16]
• Scheme: BharatNet / Digital Bharat Nidhi: the village-level fibre backbone that decides whether "5G in every district" reaches the Gram Panchayat [12]

13. Mains Relevance

• GS-II: e-governance (applications, models, successes, limitations); welfare schemes and delivery mechanisms (DBT).
• GS-III: infrastructure (telecom); science and technology (IT, achievements of Indians in technology); inclusive growth.
• GS-IV (case material): technology as a tool for transparency and probity in governance.
• Possible question stems: 1. "The mobile phone has become India's most important instrument of good governance." Examine with reference to DBT and digital service delivery. (GS-II, 15 marks) 2. Discuss how India's 5G rollout and the push to make telecom equipment in India can help bridge the digital divide. What challenges remain? (GS-III, 15 marks) 3. How did India's digital public infrastructure keep the economy and essential services running during COVID-19? (GS-III, 10 marks)

14. Related Topics to Study Next

• Digital India programme (2015): the framework the speech uses throughout.
• Telecommunications Act, 2023: the new legal framework behind the "reforms" the speech mentions.
• PLI scheme for telecom and electronics: the "make telecom hardware in India" strand.
• Direct Benefit Transfer and the JAM trinity: source of the ₹50 lakh crore figure.
• DIKSHA / PM eVIDYA: the digital education examples.
• ITU and WTSA: global telecom standard-setting (the 2024 IMC link).
• BharatNet and Digital Bharat Nidhi: rural connectivity and the last-mile digital divide.
• 6G vision / Bharat 6G Alliance: the next step after 5G.

15. NCERT Concepts to Revise

• Digital divide (Geography): The speech and note centre on bridging the gap in access to mobile technology, and on gender and rural gaps that remain.
• Digital India (Polity): The 2015 programme is the framework the speech uses to put mobile phones at the centre of governance.
• Direct Benefit Transfer (Polity): The speech cites about ₹50 lakh crore in DBT, and the note shows how failed payments can exclude workers.
• BharatNet (Geography): BharatNet's village fibre decides whether 5G in every district reaches villages; CAG found delays and long repair times.
• JAM trinity (Polity): Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and mobile linkage underpin DBT and explain both its reach and its failure points.
• Digital public infrastructure (Polity): The speech's governance-by-mobile argument rests on shared public platforms like Aadhaar and UPI delivering services at scale.

16. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Organiser confusion: IMC is run by DoT + COAI, not MeitY and not GSMA. GSMA only held its Board meeting in India in 2026 [1][4].
• Edition count: the first edition was in 2017, so 2026 is the 10th. Do not say IMC began in 2016 or 2018 [2][4].
• Mixing up themes: 2024 "The Future is Now", 2025 "Innovate to Transform", 2026 "Scale without boundaries" [6][7][2].
• DIKSHA figures are counted up to July 2022. They are not 2026 numbers [1].
• "5G Roll-out → Reach-out" was the 2023 message. The 2022 IMC is where 5G was launched [1].