USF awards Rs1.328 billion contracts to Telenor Pakistan

KARACHI: The Universal Service Fund (USF) awarded contracts worth Rs1.328 billion to Telenor Pakistan for broadband projects in Balochistan and Sindh.

Federal Minister for IT and 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 on Monday.

The contracts were signed by USF Chief Executive Officer Rizwan Mustafa Mir with Telenor Pakistan CEO and Head of Telenor’s Emerging Asia Cluster Irfan Wahab Khan.

Chief Guest of the ceremony, Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui in his address said that the USF has launched multiple projects for the socioeconomic uplift of people living in the un-served 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 said, adding that the Ministry of IT and Telecom would continue to work towards achieving the mission of broadband penetration across the country to facilitate the masses in rural areas.

He further said 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.

USF CEO Rizwan Mir 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.

He said broadband coverage would be provided to 650km of road segments on N25 (Uthal-Quetta) and N65 (Quetta-Dera Allah Yar) and 451kms of segments on N50 (Kuchlak to Sherani) and N70 (Qilla Saifullah to Rakhni).

“Moreover, mobile broadband coverage will be provided to 481 muzas in Dadu lot serving 1.2 million population and 964 mauzas serving 2.6 million population in Hyderabad lot,” he informed.

Mir further added that USF enjoys great support from the Ministry of IT and Telecom as well as the ICT industry in the common mission to aggressively work towards the vision of broadband for all citizens of Pakistan.