Agreement signed to provide 3G services to remote areas of Balochistan

ISLAMABAD: An agreement to launch 3G services in 257 villages of Lasbela and Avaran districts of Balochistan was signed on Monday in Islamabad.

Under the agreement signed between Universal Service Fund (USF) and Ministry of Information Technology, 3G services would be provided in about 257 villages of Lasbela and Avaran districts of the province. While, optic fiber would be laid at Awaran and Lasbela; the contract of which has been awarded to Ufone. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and IT Minister Anusha Rahman were also present at the ceremony.

Dar said the government was committed to bring people of all areas into the country’s financial and digital mainstream for sustainable development.

Dar said the government was working for technical and financial inclusion to provide better services to the people all across the country.

The finance minister assured provision of IT network in FATA as well.

He pointed out that Multan-Sukkur section of Karachi-Lahore Motorway was commercially not viable but the government brought it under the ambit of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to implement the project successfully.

Ishaq Dar expressed the confidence that the country would get rid of the menace of load shedding in 2018 which has been reduced to a great extent.

Speaking on the occasion, Anusha Rahman said several projects for provision of IT services in remote and backward areas of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are under implementation.

She said 190 villages of Turbat, Gwadar, Ketchh and Panjgur are also being connected under the scheme.

The finance minister said that the national exchequer earned as many as Rs160 billion through six transparent auctions of telecom spectrums, adding that the earning from the spectrum is expected to reach to Rs200 billion.

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 multifold increase in the earnings.

The minister said that the international institutions are predicting that Pakistan would become the 18th biggest economy by 2050.

“The challenge to the nation is to materialise this goal in a half time as has been done in case of macro-economic stability, which was predicted by the economic experts in six years but the present government of Nawaz Sharif achieved in just two and half years,” he said.

Dar said that 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 which was pending till last 15 years, but the present government did it, he added.