Department of Telecommunications
Ministry of Communications, Government of India

Call for Proposal for 100 5G Use Case labs from Higher Education Institutes

(Last date of submission : 15th May 2023)

The Government of India is setting up one hundred 5G Use case labs to facilitate the development of applications using 5G services in various socioeconomic verticals. These labs will be set up in educational institutions. The use cases could span across various socioeconomic verticals including education, agriculture, health, power, urban management, mining, logistics, resource management, tourism, sports, security, e-governance etc.

The Government would be funding 80% of CAPEX for the Lab Setup and 100% of OPEX expenses for next 4 years. The institution to contribute for the remaining 20% of the CAPEX. As per initial estimates, the institution's CAPEX contribution could be to a tune of Rs 10 lakhs or higher depending on CAPEX price discovery from financial bids for setting up the 5G lab infrastructure.

The 5G lab equipment would include 5G SA infrastructure (mid band), 5G SIMs, Dongles, IoT Gateway, Router and Application Server to meet lab needs along with management dashboard. The ownership of the Lab Assets will be with the beneficiary institution, during and after the project completion. The beneficiary institution shall provide necessary facilities such as Space, power supply, internet & intranet connectivity, other equipment, tech-manpower (for local maintenance) etc.

A Screening Committee would evaluate the proposals in identifying the institutes.

Objectives under the program are as under:

1. To build competencies and engagement in 5G technologies in students and academic fraternity.
2. To enable projects at UG and PG level for students using 5G environment.
3. To encourage academia-industry engagement to ideate and develop 5G use cases.
4. To Provide local access to 5G test setup for Startups and MSMEs around the institution.
5. Making Indian academia & startup ecosystem 6G ready

Roles & Responsibilities of Beneficiary Institution:

1. The beneficiary institution shall provide necessary facilities such as Space, power supply, internet/intranet connectivity, other equipment, tech-manpower (for local maintenance) etc., to ensure successful implementation of 5G usecase lab.
2. The institute shall pay the its prescribed contribution to the IA within 3 months of the final selection (Shipping of the equipment begins once the institution makes its payment)
3. Assets thus procured would belong to the host beneficiary institution.
4. The institution takes care of the safety, security and utilization of the Lab by students/ faculty/MSME ecosystem etc. IA will extend necessary facilitation in this regard.
5. The institution may have separate engagements with IA/Vendor etc., to procure other equipment (Devices/ Network elements / Usecase accessories) to enhance its functionality.
6. Institution shall extend connectivity to IA's Portal updating the Labs utilization and shall do value addition as part of knowledge dissemination reg 5G use cases being tested/developed for the benefit of other institutions/students/startups etc.
7. Hosting of Hackathons with support of IA on requirement basis.

The deliverables of the Institutions shall be as follows:

• At least 50 no. of Students and 10 nos. faculty utilising the lab for testing/project development per year
• At least 5 nos. of Start-ups/MSMEs engaged in the lab for testing/product development in a year
• At least 10 no. of Products/solutions/IPs developed/tested in a year
• Efforts to contribute in standardization process and drive the technologies developed/being developed to become part of the standards
• Efforts to pilot/commercialise/deploy the tested/developed products got in field

For more details, contact

Sh. Sanjay Kumar
General Manager (Digital Transformation)
Telecommunications Consultants India Limited
TCIL Bhawan, Greater Kailash - I,
New Delhi-110048
Tel:+91-11-26202409, +91-9811111425
Email: kumars@tcil.net.in, uclab.5g@tcil.net.in