Naveed Ahmad Khan
Islamabad
The Universal Service Fund (USF) awarded contracts worth PKR 1.328 billion in total to Telenor Pakistan for projects in Balochistan and Sindh. Federal Minister for IT & Telecom, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui inaugurated the projects “Broadband Coverage on National Highways & Motorways (Balochistan) & Next-Generation – Broadband for Sustainable Development projects in Dadu& Hyderabad” at a ceremony held on Monday. The contracts were signed by the Chief Executive Officer, Universal Service Fund, Rizwan Mustafa Mir with CEO Telenor Pakistan and Head of Telenor’s Emerging Asia Cluster, IrfanWahab Khan.
Chief Guest of the ceremony, Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui while addressing, stated that USF has launched multiple projects for the socioeconomic uplift of people living in the unserved and underserved areas of Pakistan. In order to take this further, Ministry of IT is adopting an innovative approach to enable people of Pakistan to reap further benefits from the projects. He further said that Ministry of IT & Telecom will continue to work towards achieving the mission of broadband penetration across the country to facilitate the masses in rural areas. He further added that these projects would also open-up new horizons for the people and provide them e-commerce and a host of other services that they could not have imagined a few years back. He thanked both USF and Telenor.
Also speaking at the ceremony, Rizwan Mir, CEO-USF said that with the signing of these contracts in Balochistan and Sindh, Universal Service Fund has taken yet another step to provide High Speed broadband services to remote and underserved areas.
