Engineering Post Report
Federal Ministry of Information Technology & Telecommunication through the Universal Fund (USF) is committed to minimize the Information and Communication gap between rural and urban communities throughout the country. Several projects are being designed to connect the unconnected in the unserved and underserved areas of the country.
Broadband for Sustainable Development (BSD) Program is a flagship program to establish telecommunication infrastructure for providing coverage of Voice and Broadband Internet Services to unserved mauzas across the country. USF has launched various projects to provide telecommunication coverage to approximately 12000 unserved mauzas with a population of around 15 million across all the provinces of Pakistan. More than 8364 unserved mauzas across the country have already been provided with coverage through USF.
Broadband for Sustainable Development programme has since been transformed into New Generation –Broadband Sustainable Development Programme targeting provision of enhanced Broadband Services at minimum rate of 512 kbps along with Voice Services to the unserved and underserved mauzas. In this regard, projects are gradually being launched in 108 districts already approved by the federal government.
Approximately 36 million unserved and underserved population in these districts will hopefully benefit from the programme. Before the end of the last financial year, as many as 21 projects had been contracted targeting 8545 unserved and underserved mauzas in 41 districts having an approximate population of 18 million.
According to the available information, in FY2021, contracts for 8 more projects worth approximately Rs 3.4 billion had been awarded to provide New Generation –Broadband for Sustainable Development (NG-BSD) services in the districts of Bolan, Gwadar, Ghotki, Khairpur, Sukkur, Jaffarabad, Ziarat, Malir, Karachi West, Mastung, Lower Dir, Upper Dir and Chitral targeting about 3.6 million population in 2292 unserved and underserved mauzas.
Further, New Generation Broadband for Sustainable Programme for National Highways and Motorways targets unserved road segments of the National Highways and Motorways across the country.
