Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmed Leghari said on Friday the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) was enhancing its network capacity to provide two million new connections during the next year.
This would greatly help increase the tele-density, as more people, especially from the rural areas of the country, would be able to get the connections, he said in an interview.
Highlighting the importance of this mode of communication, he said in the contemporary world, the use of telephone was not a luxury, rather a need even for a farmer working in the fields.
The Minister said considerable increase was registered since the new connection fee was reduced from Rs 1,850 to Rs 500 in rural areas.
He said about 3,000 new public call offices (PCOs) had recently been installed in different parts of the country.
Awais said Pakistan had invited private sector to come and play their role for uplift of telecom sector.
He said his ministry was pursuing stable and market-oriented strategy to provide good and viable environment for investors to invest in the sector confidently. Interest shown by private sector indicated extensive growth in telecom sector within few years, the minister added.
Answering a question, he said with the involvement of private sector in telecommunication area, competition would prevail, which would ultimately give benefit to consumers and they would be able to get better services at reasonable rates.
To another question, the minister a memorandum of understanding (MoU) had been signed between the Dubai Internet City to establish call centre of international standard.
Giving his short-term vision to promote the information technology (IT) sector, he said he wanted to establish eight to 10 software companies in the country within the next 18 to 24 months. Each company would provide jobs to about 5,000 persons, he added.
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