[Pakistan] National Telecommunication Corporation to be made viable organization

["Irfan Khan" <khania2@super.net.pk>]

[source: Comp-list mailing list]

National Telecommunication Corporation to be made viable organization 


The Dawn, By Our Reporter  1/3/2003 
http://www.dawn.com/2003/01/03/nat21.htm 


ISLAMABAD, Jan 2: The National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) 
should prepare itself to compete with other organizations in the post-

deregulation scenario.  

This was stated by the minister of state for information technology 
and telecommunications, Mohammad Raza Hiraj, at the NTC Headquarters 
here on Thursday.  

The minister said the NTC would face new challenges when the telecom 
sector was deregulated. The government on its part would make efforts 

to modernize the corporation, he added.  

The minister said the NTC would be made a viable organization. "The 
role of the NTC becomes important in view of the fact that it has 
been designated to support all e-government initiatives", he said.  

Earlier, the NTC chairman, Air Vice Marshal Azhar Maud, briefed the 
minister on the role, objective and future plans of the corporation. 
The corporation would increase the number of its subscribers to 
200,000, he added.  

The NTC chairman informed the minister that PAKSAT -1 has reached its 

orbital position and the corporation was setting up a team to handle 
all aspects of the project. For this purpose, telecom and marketing 
experts were being hired. Some professionals from the Suparco will 
also be included in the team.  

The minister was also informed that besides extending 
telecommunication services to its designated customers, the NTC had 
undertaken some major project to support the e-governance initiative 
of the government.  

The NTC's multi-services data communication network costing Rs315 
million will provide platform for all e-initiatives of the government 

including institutional internet for the ministries or departments 
and internet services to the government.  

The project will also provide state-of-the-art technology for airing 
of television programmes of PTV.  

Another project of the NTC is Pakistan Educational and Research 
Network (PERN) costing Rs29,846 million and will provide state-of-the 

art backbone to 56 universities in public and private sector.  

Under the project, universities will be inter-connected and also with 

institutions the world over to enable the students to access the 
sources of knowledge around the globe through internet and to 
standardize their respective curricula.  

Since March 2000, the NTC has covered 28 cities installing 58 
exchanges as against five cities and 20 exchanges in March 2000. It 
plans to cover another 14 cities by installing 28 more exchanges 
during 2002-03 and its network consists of 75,500 installed lines as 
against 45,506 in March 2000 which will be further expanded to 82,500 

lines during 2003.