November 26, 2002	Tuesday	Ramazan 20, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 25: The aim of government’s IT and Telecom policy will be to contribute towards social and economic development of the country.

This was stated by the federal minister for information technology and telecommunication, Awais Ahmad Leghari, while speaking to the officers of the ministry and PTCL here on Monday.

The minister said priority would be given to those projects which could make maximum impact on poverty alleviation and quality of life of common man.

The telecommunication sector around the world is going through a process of rapid change, he added.

“In line with global trends, the PTCL has to take more major initiatives to upgrade its network, introduce range of new value added services, develop portfolio of IT, internet and bandwidth related services in order to match deregulation challenges.”

He expressed satisfaction over PTCL’s performance.

The PTCL chairman, Akhtar Ahmad Bajwa, briefed the minister on various structural changes being brought to prepare the company to meet the challenges of post December scenario when the PTCL monopoly over fixed telephony would be over.

He was also informed about the steps being taken to improve customer care services and billing system.

The chairman said the PTCL had achieved remarkable milestones over the years. The PTCL earned total revenue of Rs66.42 billion with Rs19.81 billion net profit, he added.

He said during the year 2002, the number of working connections increased from 3.34 million to 3.66 million, whereas the total capacity increased from 4 million to 4.42 million.

The number of mobile phone users has reached 1.6 million, while the Ufone has about 0.36 million mobile customers, he added.

Mr Bajwa said the PTCL had launched Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service in Karachi and Rawalpindi.

The chairman briefed the minister about the PTCL pre-paid calling cards, CLI, voice massaging, tariff reductions, and PTCL subsidiaries, including Paknet, and Carrier Telephone Industries.