ET Telecom, July 29, 2025
The Draft Telecommunications (Telecom Cyber Security) Amendment Rules, 2025, proposed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), may impact three of India’s fastest-growing digital consumer sectors — digital payments, food delivery, and mobility — and the scope and legal foundation of the Draft Rules must be revisited, said CUTS International on Tuesday.
“Overall, increased costs and exclusion risks may reduce digital adoption, hinder competition, and result in an estimated ₹2.5 lakh crore loss to the digital economy even at a 10 per cent compliance, potentially excluding 4,000-5,000 potential start-ups from the market and risking a loss of nearly 1.5-2 lakh direct jobs,” it said.
To strengthen digital security and curbing cyber fraud, the Ministry of Communications released the draft Amendment Rules last month. The amendments mandate that Telecommunication Identifier User Entities (TIUEs) that use mobile numbers for user authentication will now be required to validate these numbers through a centralised Mobile Number Validation (MNV) platform.
TIUEs include platforms of e-commerce companies, fintech apps, over-top-players (OTT) services, ride-hailing companies and even small digital firms.
annual compliance costs
Therefore, the Draft Amendment Rules shows that even modest per-verification charges proposed in the Draft Amendment Rules (₹1.50/₹3 for mobile number validations) may result in large recurring costs, CUTS said, adding that digital platforms may face annual compliance costs in the range of ₹10 crore to thousands of crores.
Therefore, CUTS said the government should focus on harmonising existing cybersecurity frameworks; instead of creating parallel regulations, inter-ministerial coordination and pilot testing through sandboxes should guide any rollout.
“Before imposing new rules, the government should conduct full regulatory and privacy impact assessments and consider differentiated compliance models based on risk and size to avoid stifling innovation or increasing digital inequality,” it added.
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