Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) chief regretted during the last several years, various governments have not spent a penny in the telecom sector.
PTA Chairman Major General (r) Hafeezur Rehman said this during a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology.
PTA chief advised federal government to learn lesson from Indian Premier Modi who had spent record 13 billion dollars on fiber cables connectivity. He claimed that PTA has given 1700 billion revenue to the government during the last six years but in return, the government had not spent a penny on the system upgradation.
MQM MNA Mustafa Kamal asked the PTA chief to share plan how the government can improve connectivity. IT Ministry was working on fibrisation policy, Chairman PTA replied.
IT Ministry’s officials told the meeting that HR Development Program of National Semiconductor was being launched and the semiconductor project was being awarded to the Pakistan Software Export Board.
IT Ministry’s officials said that there were many semiconductor experts in Pakistan. IT committee member Umair Niazi said that IT was an industry of 500 billion dollars, country can generate big revenue from it. Committee’s another member Ahmed Atique said that Pakistan was far behind in semiconductors.
Secretary IT said that government-to-government agreements were being made for the development of semiconductors. “A semiconductor design is selling for millions of dollars”, Ahmed Atiq said.
