The Department of Telecom (DoT) has rejected pleas from the Indian Cellular Association (ICA), which represents most mobile handset makers in the country, and stuck to its original deadline of January 1, 2018 for compulsory inclusion of GPS systems in all mobile phones, reports The Economic Times. The report mentions that the government’s argument for upholding the original deadline was the urgent need for safety and security of women and stated that GPS is the primary tool in determining a subscriber’s location in an emergency. The government also categorically stated that it will not entertain any further arguments against this from handset makers.

In April 2016, DoT had made it mandatory for all mobile handsets to have GPS by January 2018, apart from having a physical panic button on each device. Following this, ICA had asked TRAI to recommend to the DoT that GPS should not be mandatory, saying that “the actual cost of implementation of this capability on low-cost feature phones is huge and could actually have catastrophic consequences for the nascent mobile handset manufacturing industry that is just beginning to take shape in India.” And in a letter to Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, ICA had said that a feature phone priced at Rs 500-700 will cost around Rs 950 to Rs 1150 if GPS becomes mandatory.