The Indian government has no plans to replace the current data protection bill with a new draft, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a PTI interview. Deliberations are underway over various aspects of the bill and the government aims to receive the Parliament's approval by the monsoon session, he revealed. Vaishnaw said that the consultations were comprehensive and the Joint Parliamentary Committee’s report, which was tabled in December, was a “comprehensive report”. However, there are matters which need to be resolved before the bill is promulgated into a law, he admitted. "I think we should be able to resolve them very soon and bring it...our target was actually this budget session itself," Vaishnaw told PTI. The Data Protection Bill 2021 presented in the JPC report is a landmark legislation which will govern the use of data in India. Ashwini Vaishnaw's comments shed light on a timeline that the government has laid out to bring the law into force. They also categorically discredit speculations that the government is working on a new draft. Key takeaways from IT Minister’s interview Implementation needs to be smooth: The IT minister told PTI that some stakeholders were concerned about the implementation structure of the bill. Vaishnaw clarified that the draft will need to be tweaked to ensure the implementation is without any obstacles. Taking the IT industry into confidence: Vaishnaw said that the government is going to make sure that there is no adverse impact of the legislation on any sector, especially the…
