During the 2004 elections, his winning margin was over votes and he received 62% of the total votes polled. He was appointed as Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology on 26 May 2004. During his tenure as IT and Telecommunication Minister the call rates of mobiles and landlines were drastically reduced which in-turn influenced the growth of subscriptions. During the tenure, he was instrumental in garnering a large amount of Foreign Direct Investments into Communication and Information Technology Sector. Many multinational telecom companies including Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Flextronics and Dell set up units in the country. His ministry introduced "One Rupee One India" plan across the country, which enabled calls across the country at a rate of 1 per minute. His ministry set and achieved a target of 250 million connections in Dec 2007 to December 2010, against 75 million in May 2004.