Raja Approves First USF Project

Sitara Khan

Federal Minister for Information Technology and Teleocmmu(IT), Raja Perviaz Ashraf, as Chairman USF approved and launched first project of Rural Telecom Services, Mastung Lot (Balochistan) at a value of Rs3.15 billion.

The project’s series aimed at providing basic telephony and data services in Mastung Lot (Balochistan) and broadband services in Southern Telecom Region-V (Sindh). Accordingly, Rural Telecom Project in Mastung, basic telephony and data services will be provided to a population of 74,831 people which resides in 102 unserved muzas of Balochistan consisting of Mastung, Nushki and Ziarat Districts.

So far, rural telecom projects for Pishin, Nasirabad and Mastung Lot which aim to provide basic telephony and data services in around 1,062 un-served muzas are benefitting a population of 791 thousand.

USF has been very actively running projects for providing ICT related services in Balochistan as well as rest of the provinces.

Similarly under another programme, 44 un-served tehsil headquarters along with 29 towns will be connected through optical fiber cable benefitting more than 5 million population.

It is the second USF board members’ meeting of the year held after three months gap since February.