SUKKUR, Jan 4: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that 50,000 villages in the country have been connected through the wireless local loop (WLL) service.

He said now the farmers and villagers in the far-flung areas would enjoy the telephone facility.

He was addressing the inaugural ceremony of the WLL system launched by the PTCL in Sukkur on Tuesday. The prime minister claimed that the government had not only taken the country at par with the developed countries by introducing deregulatory policy in the telecommunication sector but it had strengthened the economy.

He said reforms chalked out by the government to pull out the country from economic derailment, were being carried out according to the timeframe. Mr Aziz said the country would become well off as all the economic targets were being achieved timely.

He said the tremendous increase had been recorded in industrial and agriculture productions and the target of 6.50 fixed for the development had already been crossed.

He disclosed that licences issued to mobile phones companies in the past based on the personal relations which caused loss to the country. He said his government ended favouritism and issuing licences to mobile phone companies through open auctions.

He said the present government had earned $290 million from two mobile companies. He said the government had given a target to the minister of IT Awais Leghari to form broadband policy for telecommunication, information technology and computerization and spread its network to the rural areas so that new generation could benefit from it.

He said the Sukkur Barrage being the largest irrigation system was the heart of irrigation for Sindh and without it Sindh could not flourish. He said the Sukkur Barrage was the matter of life and death for Sindhis and the federal government had provided 80 per cent expenditure for its repair work.

Presenting the welcome address to the prime minister, the federal minister for IT Awais Leghari said so far 20,000 villages had been provided with the WLL while within next few weeks the facility would be provided in 50,000 villages.

He said after the completion of the WLL the phone coverage in Pakistan, which at present was 30 per cent, would be increased upto 100 per cent. He said facilities were being provided to the private companies according to the deregulation policy and 800,000 mobile connections had been provided as yet.

Besides, the PTCL was also in competition with these companies and within next few months this number would become threefold. PTCL president Junaid Iqbal was also present on the occasion.

Earlier, the prime minister visited the Sukkur Barrage and inspected its repair work. Major-General Shahid Niaz of the FWO briefed the prime minister about the repair so far carried out.

He told the prime minister about the remedial measures so far taken to save the barrage. He said that the army men were busy in the repair work round the clock as the work had been accepted by the Army as a challenge. Later, the prime minister went round the upstream and downstream of the barrage.