Funds, equipment required for monitoring grey traffic, National Assembly body told

Owing to the growing financial crisis and lack of necessary equipment, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) failed in controlling grey traffic in the country. This was revealed by PTA officials, while briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT), which met with Barjees Tahir in the chair, here on Thursday.
The committee expressed dissatisfaction over the non-implementation of the committee recommendations during last four years. It further directed the Ministry and institutions concerned to review the recommendation and ensure its implementation. Director Vigilance said that due to shortage of funds, equipment required for monitoring grey traffic could not be installed and only 30 percent traffic is currently being monitored with limited resources. One billion rupees is needed for state-of-the-art technology to be installed to overcome grey traffic, he added.
However, Chairman of the committee said that influential people were involved in grey trafficking and it was not easy to take action against them. Member (Legal) IT Kamran said that another reason behind the failure to control grey traffic was the ambiguity in the definition of grey traffic. There is no proper definition of grey traffic and proposed punishment for the culprits involved in it.
However, in the "Pakistan Telecommunications (Re-Organisation) Amendment Bill 2010" it has been proposed that grey traffic would be declared an "offense" and the person found involved would be punished with three years imprisonment and Rs 1 million as fines. On PTA complaints, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) conducted 66 raids from 2009 to 2011, wherein 57 people including 6 foreigners involved in grey traffic were arrested. The agency also registered 36 cases against the people involved in grey traffic of which the courts have decided three cases.
The committee recommended PTA to ban night and SMS packages, as it causing social degeneration and criminal activities. DG (Law) Sajjad Awan informed the committee that on November 14, 2012, the Authority issued directive to all telecom operators to ban night packages. The operators moved Islamabad High Court against the decision; however today (Thursday), they (operators) withdrew their petition and may adhere to PTA directives.
Regarding 3G auction, PTA officials informed the committee that consultants of international repute have been hired on salary of $5,45,000 for three months. The Authority would share Memorandum of Information (MoI) with consultants by December 2012 and expecting that the process would be completed by the February 2013. The committee further directed Pakistan Telecommunication Employees Trust (PTET) to immediately increase and release the pension of the needy employees in the light of Supreme Court order.