Open forum held on development of telecommunication in Pakistan's rural areas

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

Open forum held on development of telecommunication in Pakistan's 
rural areas

The News, 6/26/2003
http://www.jang-group.com/thenews/jun2003-daily/26-06-
2003/business/b6.htm
  

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information Technology and 
Telecommunications, Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari, on Wednesday called for 
drastic measures to increase teledensity especially in the rural 
areas of the country.  

Addressing an Open Forum on "Development of Telecommunication in 
Rural Areas of Pakistan" organised by the Pakistan Telecommunication 
Authority here, he said radical steps are required to promote 
telecommunication in the remote areas as only 1,213 of 50,588 
villages had been connected so far.  

Awais said a rural teledensity of 0.77 per cent as compared to urban 
teledensity of 5.76 per cent with country average at 2.6 per cent is 
not at all acceptable by any comparative standards.  

He urged Pakistan Telecommunication Company to learn from the 
experiences of BSNL of India and of Sri Lanka Telecom.  

PTCL has to do a lot of hard work to correct the basic teledensity 
figures in the country through deployment of WLL, CMTS and other 
technologies to lift the rural areas of the country, he said.  

The minister observed that while the overall teledensity figures of 
Pakistan were extremely low, the rural teledensity was even poorer 
and in comparison to countries having similar economic indicators, 
statistical figures are not very encouraging in the case of Pakistan. 
 

"Even our neighbouring countries have achieved higher teledensity and 
in the past few years have been able to address the issue of rural 
communications through new digital and wireless technologies and by 
adopting various approaches and techniques to provide access to rural 
and remote areas," he added.  

Awais said the expansion of rural telecommunications through all 
available sources was the highest priority of the government and the 
whole public sector machinery was actively engaged in devising future 
strategy and the roadmap to address this immensely important but 
complicated issue.  

"In fact, the cornerstone of the new telecommunications policy is to 
achieve sustainable development in the telecommunications sector 
through a market-based philosophy and thereby creating a self-
propelling mechanism to even address the difficult area of rural 
communications that has long been neglected," Awais said.  

He said the govt was determined to liberalise, deregulate and create 
an enabling environment to facilitate investment and growth in 
telecommunication and IT.  

The guiding principles in this regard will be transparency, fairness 
and non-discrimination, he said. The minister emphasised the 
deregulation would open new corridors of investment in various 
segments of the telecommunication industry. He said the government 
was also pro-actively engaged in creating an investor-friendly 
environment. "A liberal policy framework will definitely facilitate 
the flow of investment and technology for catering to the increasing 
demand of telecommunication services," he said.  

He said Pakistan held a geo-strategic position in the Asia Pacific 
and it could serve as a telecommunication hub for the South and 
Central Asian regions. "We are aiming at capitalising on this geo-
strategic advantage by facilitating investment through deregulation 
and a host of other measures," he said.  

He said Pakistan could offer attractive benefits to investors and 
hoped the synergy created by the public-private partnership would not 
only allow Pakistan to succeed in bridging the domestic and regional 
digital divide, but also create profitable business and employment 
opportunities in the IT and telecom sector.  



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