The Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication is displeased with Pakistan’s poor quality of telecommunication services and summoned telecom operators, the Chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), and the Minister for Information Technology & Telecommunications, Syed Amin Ul Haque, to explain the situation in its next meeting.
The meeting of the Senate Standing Committee was held under the Chairmanship of Senator Kauda Babar in Parliament House today.
The committee members had an outburst regarding the poor quality of services by local telecom operators and asked the PTA’s officials to devise a concrete strategy for the improvement of services. The members and the chairman were also displeased with the absence of the Chairman of the PTA and called for his presence in the next meeting.
The chairman lambasted the absence of networks in Balochistan and other areas of Pakistan. He said that the people of Balochistan pay taxes for each recharge but are unable to avail of telecom services. He warned that the committee will take action if the cellular companies cannot resolve the issue at the earliest.
A PTA official explained that the problem is mainly due to security reasons and power interruptions.
Chairman Babar informed the officials that even the Parliament House and some pockets of Islamabad do not have proper cellular services coverage. “Is there any security issue in the Parliament as well? I have got three connections to get myself connected,” he remarked.
He then directed all the cellular companies to ensure their presence in the next meeting and brief the committee about the matter in detail.
The committee discussed the ‘National Information Technology Board Bill’ and highlighted legal ambiguities in it. The Chairman opined that if Minister Haque addressed the ambiguities directly with the committee, it will pass the bill in the next meeting.
While discussing the Pass Track application, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) apprised the committee that it was developed in coordination with the Ministry of Health and the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) for record-keeping of travelers to Pakistan during the pandemic. The committee was briefed about the salient features of the application and was told that the application is user-friendly and can be installed on smartphones.
It was mentioned that 1,530,185 people have downloaded this app so far and 166,768 passengers traveled using this app in January.
Senator Afnan Ullah Khan noted that the app does not have an ‘Edit your Profile’ option and recommended that the MoITT include Urdu and other regional languages in the app as well.
While deliberating over the IGNITE funds and projects, the MoITT informed the committee that IGNITE had awarded 4,761 scholarships from 2007 to 2018 under the umbrella of the National ICT Scholarship Program, which cost around Rs. 3.75 billion, and 353 scholarships were awarded to students from Baluchistan between 2011 and 2018, which cost around Rs. 230 million.
Furthermore, five Incubation Centers were established in Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore, Quetta and it is being planned that more will be opened in Hyderabad and Faisalabad in 2022 and in Multan and Sialkot in 2023, as per the MoITT.
The Committee decided to visit the Islamabad Center to, analyze its operations and standards.
IGNITE has also funded startups and launched the Digiskills project which provides free online training in three districts of southern Balochistan, including Khuzdar, Turbat, and Gwadar, the MoITT said.
The meeting was attended by Senators Rubina Khalid, Sana Jamali, Seemee Ezdi, Palwasha Mohammad Zai Khan, Naseema Ehsan, Afnan Ullah Khan, Shahadat Awan, and Zeeshan Khanzada; the Secretary MoITT, and other senior officers of the PTA.
Source: Pro Pakistani
