Multi-ministry nod clears rollout path for India’s D2M broadcasting

India has effectively cleared a major policy hurdle for Direct-to-Mobile (D2M) broadcasting, with approvals across key ministries now opening the path for rollout. The Committee of Secretaries, drawing members from the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, MeitY and the Department of Space, has granted in-principle approval, shifting D2M from inter-ministerial deliberation into the implementation phase, where spectrum planning, regulatory safeguards and structured stakeholder consultations will now be taken up.

This multi-ministry nod underpins the government’s ambition to begin commercial D2M services around mid-2026, supported by ongoing test transmissions and pilots led by Prasar Bharati in collaboration with IIT Kanpur and Tejas Networks (via Saankhya Labs) across multiple cities, where use cases such as live TV, emergency alerts and public messaging are being validated on broadcast signals receivable directly on mobile devices without data consumption.

For broadcasters, this creates a dedicated, spectrum-efficient pipe to reach large audiences, particularly in low-connectivity regions, while for telecom operators it raises spectrum-sharing and business-model questions that the government panel has explicitly flagged for detailed review so that D2M is positioned as complementary rather than directly competitive to existing mobile broadband services.
BCS Bureau