The Universal Service Fund (USF) on Monday awarded contracts worth Rs 1.328 billion to Telenor Pakistan for projects in Balochistan and Sindh. Federal Minister for IT & Telecom, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui inaugurated the projects "Broadband Coverage on National Highways & Motorways (Balochistan) & Next-Generation-Broadband for Sustainable Development projects in Dadu and Hyderabad" at a ceremony, held here on Monday.
The contracts were signed by Chief Executive Officer USF Rizwan Mustafa Mir and CEO Telenor Pakistan and Head of Telenor's Emerging Asia Cluster IrfanWahab Khan.
Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui while addressing on this occasion said that USF has launched multiple projects for the socioeconomic uplift of the people living in the un-served and underserved areas of Pakistan. In order to take this further, the IT Ministry is adopting an innovative approach to enable people of Pakistan to reap further benefits from the projects. He further said that Ministry of IT & Telecom will continue to work towards achieving the mission of broadband penetration across the country to facilitate the masses in rural areas.
He further added that these projects would also open up new horizons for the people and provide them with e-commerce and a host of other services that they could not have imagined a few years back. He thanked both USF and Telenor.
CEO USF Rizwan Mir said that with the signing of these contracts in Balochistan and Sindh, the Universal Service Fund has taken yet another step to provide high speed broadband services to remote and underserved areas. He informed that broadband coverage will be provided to 650 kilometres of road segments on N25 (Uthal-Quetta) and N65 (Quetta-Dera Allah Yar) and 451 kilometres of segments on N50 (Kuchlak to Sherani) & N70 (QillaSaifullah to Rakhni).
Moreover, mobile broadband coverage will be provided to 481 muzas in Dadu lot, serving 1.2 million population and 964 mauzas serving 2.6 million population in Hyderabad lot.
He further added that USF enjoys great support from Ministry of IT and Telecom as well as the ICT industry in the common mission to aggressively work towards the vision of broadband for all citizens of Pakistan. He mentioned that USF is planning to launch several new broadband projects in the next few months including underserved areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab such as Bahawalnagar, Tharparkar, Kurram, DG Khan, Sangarh, Muzzaffargarh with 3,176 mauzas in total and population of 7.94 million people on the whole.
CEO Telenor Pakistan and Head of Telenor Emerging Asia Cluster Irfan Wahab Khan said, "Since inception, Telenor Pakistan has been driven by the ambition to empower Pakistan through enhanced connectivity that creates a positive impact through reduced inequalities and uplifts millions of lives. Our goals are well aligned with USF to spread the benefits of digital and cellular services across Pakistan and uplift under-served areas of the country.
This new project will not only deliver better mobile and 3G/4G coverage on the national highways and motorways in Balochistan, but will also ensure next-generation broadband service for sustainable development projects in Dadu and Hyderabad, he said. Senior officials of the Ministry of IT, USF and Telenor were also present at the event.