Talking to mediamen here at a license awarding ceremony Kaira said he was in favour of extending the deadline for SIMs registration.
"The PPP government is also looking into the issue of PTCL employees and the decision will be taken in interest of the employees," he said.
Earlier, addressing the ceremony, Kaira said the government was making efforts to introduce the e-government in the country and by next three years, at least 45 ministries would be linked to e-government.
"This will help bring efficiency, transparency, better functioning. This will also help media as no one would have to go to offices for collecting information. Everything will be available on internet," he said.
The minister was of the view that parliamentary committees were functioning exuberantly and this was helping bring better governance.
Kaira expressed his pleasure the country was opening up its space for communication purposes and more and more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was coming in.
He lauded the services of the PTA, saying the organization had done a better regulation of the telecom industry.
"The telecom industry is the only sector worldwide which is consumer-friendly. Yet it is expanding rapidly. As Pakistan wants to give access to China and the central Asian states to our ports, better provision of communication across country will help in this process," he maintained. Urging the companies to ensure maximum coverage in the far-flung areas of AJK and NAs, Kaira said this would ensure rapid growth of telecom industry.
He said the government would use the fund of the industry to provide subsidy to the people to ensure maximum coverage in the rural areas.
PTA Chairman Shahzada Alam Malik said since 1976 only the SCO had been operating in AJK and Northern Areas. Now fixed line licenses were being awarded to private operators, which is a historic development, he added. The PTA chairman said that five licenses for mobile phone services were already given in AJK and NAs and now mobile services were available in these areas. He said future of telecom business in Pakistan was bright and consumers would get advanced services in days to come. He mentioned that for telecom services Pakistan was the most inexpensive country in the region.
KANA Secretary Salman Siddique, NAs Home Secretary Sardar Muhammad Abbas and AJK Secretary Finance Fahimulla Khattak also addressed the ceremony.
Later, Kaira distributed 24 licenses to 13 companies including the Link Direct, Wateen, Telenor, PTCL, World Call, InterWorld, Sky Telecom, Great Bear, WOL, DaleelTeq, BTC, Cybernet, and Mobilink.
The PTA will get around $170,000 against the issuance of these licenses as an initial amount. It has already paid Rs 1.2 billion to AJK and NAs for five cellular companies licenses, which were awarded to Mobilink, Telenor, Warid Telecom, UFone in June 2006 while CMPak was awarded a license in August 2007.
Out of the total amount, the AJK Council had got Rs 927.6 million while NAs chief secretary was paid Rs 277.1 million against the licenses awarded to cellphone companies.
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Quelle/Source: The Post, 29.05.2008
