Report by Engineering Post
As many as 30 major and minor projects in the Information Technology and Telecommunication (ICT) sector were under implementation under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) and were reported to be in various stages of their completion.
During last financial year 2023-24, an allocation of Rs 6000 million was provided for ICT’s 30 projects showing high priority being given to the projects that could contribute towards the development of the digital economy. However, against this allocation, only Rs 13072.20 million had been reported to have incurred on these 30 projects till end June 2024 indicating rather slow pace of implementation of 30 projects and resultantly lesser utilization of allocated funds. No immediate explanation was forthcoming in this regard from the official quarters concerned.
On the physical infrastructure level in the telecommunication sector, as of January 2024 as per information now available, the continuous high growth of Pakistan’s IT industry had resulted in 190 million mobile cellular subscribers, thus achieving a mobile tele density of as high a s 79.11 percent .in addition, there were 129 million mobile broadband subscribers , with a mobile broadband penetration rate of 53.57 percent.
Special Communication Organization (SCO) was providing ICT services to more than 4.5 million people of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and 1.48 million of Gilgit-Baltistan. SCO mobile and fixed Local Line services have 28/4 percent and 1.3 percent penetration, respectively. The teledensity in Gilgit-Baltistan was less as compared to AJ&K due to the low population density of the area, however, SCO has reached out to the far-flung underserved and unserved areas.
