The Universal Service Fund (USF) here on Monday awarded Rs 2.33 billion to Pak Telecom Mobile Limited (Ufone) for Awaran/Lasbela Lot under the 'Broadband for Sustainable Development' (BSD) project to launch 3G services in the backward areas of Balochistan.
Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) USF, Haaris M Chaudhary and Acting CEO Ufone Nadeem Khan signed the contract, while State Minister for Information Technology and Telecom, Anusha Rehman and Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar also witnessed the signing ceremony.
An un-served population of about 196,177, covering 269 un-served mauzas and an un-served area of 39,434 square kilometres will get modern broadband facilities through this project.
About 72 new BTSs (mobile towers) will be installed to provide mobile broadband internet/3G services in the area.
The Awaran/Lasbela Lot covers 12.8 percent of the area and 6.5 percent of the total estimated population of Balochistan includes Awaran and Lasbela districts. This lot shares borders with Karachi and Dadu districts in the east, Khuzdar and Washuk in the north, Panjgur and Kech in the west and Gwadar district in the south.
The project would cover Awaran, Jhal Jao and Mashkai tehsils/sub-tehsils of Awaran district and Bela, Lakhra, Liari, Uthal, Dureji, Hub, Sonmiani and Kanraj of Lasbel district.
Addressing on this occasion, Anusha Rehman said the USF has successfully initiated 6 new projects under this category in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
The USF has set a target to reach all under-served and un-served areas of the country with rural telephone and e-Services (RTeS) by the first quarter of 2018, she added.
Despite massive growth in telecom, vast areas of the country remain un-served. On the other hand, telecom is one of the most important tools for rapid development especially in the rural areas. The USF has been given the mandate to provide telecommunication services in underserved and un-served areas.
The IT minister said 190 villages of Turbat, Gwadar, Ketch and Panjgur are also being connected under the scheme. Anusha Rehman said, "Under the vision of connecting the unconnected, we are making efforts for maximum digital connectivity."
She said with wide spread array of infrastructural network under the CPEC, the government in collaboration with the partners laid down 6400 kilometres optic fibre network digitally linking the whole country.
Dar said the government is committed to bring people of all areas into the country's financial and digital mainstream. He assured the provision of IT network in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), saying that security would be ensured for conducting survey. Some projects of the USF are commercially not viable; however, it is the government's commitment to reach the un-served and bring them in the digital mainstream.
He further said that Multan-Sukkur section of Karachi-Lahore Motorway was commercially not viable, but the government brought it under the ambit of the CPEC with the estimated cost of $3 billion to implement the project successfully.
Dar said the government is determined to promote digitalisation all across the country for increasing outreach and access of financial services to people for sustainable development.
The finance minister said that the national exchequer earned Rs160 billion through 5 transparent auctions of telecom spectrums, adding that the earning from the spectrum is expected to reach Rs200 billion with one more auction still to be held. He said that earlier, only Rs50 billion were estimated from the auction of the telecommunication spectrum; however, with diligence and transparency mechanism, there has been manifold increase in the earnings.
The minister said the merger of all stock exchanges of Pakistan into Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on January 11, 2016 has been bearing fruits as it has been declared 5th fastest performing exchanges now. It was not an easy job and had been pending for last 15 years, but the present government completed it, he added.
Due to the untiring efforts of the government, electricity load shedding has been reduced to 3 hours in the cities and four hours in the rural areas. Earlier, when this government came in power in 2013, the power outages of 14 hours in the cities and 17 hours in rural areas were recorded, he added. "The darkness would be completely vanished by 2018," he remarked.