June 08, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 22, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 7: Federal Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari on Thursday termed production of top-quality human resource, introduction of a paperless economy and a massive proliferation of broadband services as some of the key areas his ministry would focus in the coming months.

“We believe that IT is the only tool we can use in this information age to transform the lives of millions who are still living below the poverty line in our country,” he said while briefing a group of students of Department of Mass Communication Studies from Fatima Jinnah Women’s University Rawalpindi, on the government’s performance and achievements in the IT and telecom sector.

He said there were a host of problems he faced when he assumed the charge of the ministry. “There was this traditional bureaucratic inertia which stalls everything and then there were issues which required bold decisions, but by the grace of God we have been able to deliver on all fronts due to consistent support and guidance extended to us from the top political level,” he said.

He said his ministry took up the reformation of IT and telecom sector in the light of the president’s seven-point agenda and within a span of few years not only the sector had witnessed an exponential growth, but the country had also been honoured and recognised as a success story all over the world. “Only last year, we were awarded with the prestigious Country Leadership Award by the GSM Association which is represented by over 700 GSM players of the world,” he told the students.

Awais said the telecom sector in Pakistan had come a long way from the past few years ago when the country had merely 2.8 per cent teledensity. “Today, our teledensity is 40 per cent and our mobile phone subscribers’ base has gone beyond 55 million, promoting the government to introduce mobile phone banking which would further facilitate the subscribers in transferring their money from one place to another with a click of their handsets,” he said.

Awais said the benefits of growth in the telecom sector were myriad and the whole economy had benefited with over 300,000 jobs created directly or indirectly during the last few years. He stressed the exponential growth in telecom sector owed a lot to what he called the consistent backing and pushing from the president and the prime minister to the ministry of information technology for liberalising and deregulating the sector to ensure an open competition.