ISLAMABAD: International Technology Union (ITU) Secretary General Houlin Zhao called on State Minister for IT Anusha Rahman in her office on Monday.
The minister briefed the ITU secretary general, who is in Pakistan in connection with ITU-PTA Regulators’ Roundtable’, on recent development and key initiatives being taken by the government of Pakistan in the field of information and communication technology. She appreciated the ITU for its efforts in harmonising the use of information and communication technology throughout the world.
Anusha told the secretary general that the government was fully cognizant of the fact that development of information and communication technology was essential to spur socio-economic growth.
“We are rigorously pursuing the agenda of ‘Digital Pakistan’ on priority basis. Our vision of accelerated digitalisation will surely transform Pakistan into a knowledge-based economy. Our government staunchly believes in ubiquitous development of the IT infrastructure across the country with special emphasis on serving marginalized segment of the society. We have already rolled out programmes worth billions of Rupees through the ‘Universal Service Fund’ (USF) in order to connect un-served and underserved areas of Pakistan under ‘Rural Telephony’ project, and we are also ensuring the provisioning of 2G/3G services to all the remote and far-flung areas,” she told the secretary general.
Giving details about Pakistan’s achievements in the IT field, she said, “Our broadband penetration had risen to more than 19% from less than 3% within the shortest span of two years and we were anticipating 38% increase by the end of 2020. Our government had successfully curtailed the menace of ‘Gray Trafficking’ through an appropriate policy intervention and succeeded to bring white minutes back to more than 1.5 billion per month.”
“We have given a comprehensive telecom policy document which not only covers regulatory framework but also addresses all the challenges being faced by the telecom sector in modern era including availability of spectrum, infrastructure deployment, content and application development, spectrum trading and spectrum sharing etc.”
“We have started a special programme for girls of lower income stratum of the society so that they can earn their livelihood honourably, while sitting at their homes,” she explained.
She apprised the general secretary that technology parks were being established in different cities to train young entrepreneurs.
She called upon the ITU secretary general to take steps to fight cyber crime. She suggested that the ITU might constitute an advisory committee comprising all stakeholders to effective control cyber crimes.
Appreciating the IT minister for taking endeavours to promote the IT industry in Pakistan, the general secretary congratulated the minister for hosting ‘Asia-Pacific Regulators’ Roundtable’ with the collaboration of the ITU for the first time in Pakistan.
In his maiden visit to Pakistan, the secretary general discussed areas of further expansion in IT sector including mechanism for handling cyber crimes.
