Under-served and un-served areas: Six projects of NGBSD worth Rs 2.8bn awarded

The Universal Service Fund (USF) has awarded six projects of Next Generation Broadband for Sustainable Development (NGBSD) worth Rs 2.8 billion for the socio-economic uplift of the under-served and un-served areas of the country.
The USF Policy Committee had approved annual budget of Rs 9.517 billion for the fund for fiscal year 2019-2020.
The USF has spent around Rs 56.013 billion since its creation in 2007, expand basic telephony, and mobile broadband services to the under served and un-served areas of the country.
Spokesperson of the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication said that the ministry through the USF has made landmark achievements in the first six months (July-December) of fiscal year 2019-2020.
During this period, six projects, NGBSD worth Rs 2.8 billion were awarded for the socio-economic uplift of the people.
Through these projects, hi-speed mobile broadband access is being provided to over nine million (approximately) citizens in total, residing in 4,333 mauzas spread across 13 districts.
The contracts of these projects were awarded for hi-speed broadband services in Hyderabad (districts of Matiari, Tando Allahyar, Hyderabad, Tando Muhammad Khan, Badin and Sujawal), Bahawalpur (district of Bahawalpur), Rahimyar Khan (district of Rahimyar Khan), Bahawalnagar (Bahawalnagar), DG Khan (DG Khan and Layyah), and Tharparkar (Tharparkar and Mirpurkhas), according to the performance report of the USF, an organisation under the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication.
The contracts of these projects were awarded to Telenor and PMCL (Jazz). Through the implementation of all these projects, the Ministry of IT and Telecom through the USF is enabling citizens of Pakistan to harness dividends of the 4th industrial revolution.
All these programmes are acting as a catalyst to stimulate economic growth, create jobs, trigger financial inclusion, decrease disparities, reduce social inclusion and enable improvements in education, healthcare and other social services.
They are also helping Pakistan achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and also creating a favourable environment for implementation of the Prime Minister's Digital Pakistan Programme, as broadband coverage has been identified as a primary pillar of the programme.
In order to further spread the benefits of these projects, the USF plans to award contracts for the projects in Sanghar (Umerkot and Sanghar), Muzaffargarh (Muzaffargarh and Rajanpur), Kurram (Kurram), Bolan (Kacchi-Bolan and Jhal Magsi) and Jaffarabad (Jaffarabad, Sohbatpur and Nasirabad) in the second half of the FY 2019-2020.
The USF with the support of the Ministry of IT and Telecom is creating a success story for the public-private partnership entities nationally and internationally, and a large number of countries are replicating the USF model of Pakistan.
Such milestones will keep enabling the USF to reach new heights in the future. However, despite spending around Rs 56.013 billion to date, some of the un-served and under-served areas in Balochistan, as well as South Waziristan and Kurram districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, still lack access to basic telephony and mobile broadband services.
The USF was created in 2007 to stretch cellular, broadband internet, fiber optics and other telecommunication services to un-served or underserved areas.
All telecom companies have been contributing 1.5 percent of their revenues to the fund. Officials revealed that the USF has over Rs 32 billion in balance and spent Rs 56.013 billion during the last over 10 years for the expansion of telecommunication services to the under-served and un-served areas of the country.
The USF officials maintained that despite massive growth there were many areas that remained underserved.
The challenges, they asserted, that the USF faced were rugged terrains, sparse population, harsh weather, lack of electricity, no backhaul, and poor logistics as well as security clearance.