"Such equal treatment is essential for enabling the use of paperless communication, thus fostering efficiency in international trade," the UN body said.

The government has already constituted a committee to develop a conceptual framework for Communications Convergence Bill, which was originally drafted in 2000 under the BJP-led NDA Government.

The Bill was at that time shelved due to differences between the Telecom Ministry and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting on bringing the broadcasting sector under the ambit of a super-regulator.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) is likely to finalise the draft Bill before the Winter Session of Parliament.

The government's move to modify the IT Act, 2000 to boost online shopping also gels with its ambitious project worth around Rs 35,000 crore that aims to provide high-speed broadband connectivity to 2.50 lakh gram panchayats in India.

According to Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, the National Optical Fibre Network will lead to an explosion of e-commerce in the country.

A joint study by consultancy firm PwC and industry body Assocham predicts that the size of the e-retail industry is poised to touch $10-20 billion by 2017-2020 and e-commerce firms are expected to spend up to $1.9 billion by 2017-2020 on infrastructure, logistics and warehousing.

Another report by consulting firm Technopak pegs the $2.3 billion e-tailing market to reach $32 billion by 2020.

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