Karachi: The Federal Ministry of Information Technology has commenced two projects to provide high-speed mobile broadband service in 797 backward villages of four districts of Sindh in just 12 months.
The total cost of the two projects is Rs698 million as their implementation will benefit the rural areas of the districts Qambar-Shahdadkot, Larkana, Naushahro Feroze, and Shaheed Benazirabad.
One of the projects will provide broadband service to 359 villages of Qambar-Shahdadkot and Larkana, while the second project will prove beneficial for 438 villages of districts Naushahro Feroze and Shaheed Banazirabad.
The two projects will cover over 6,61,000 people belonging to these villages.
Speaking on the occasion, Federal IT Minister, Aminul Haque, said that his ministry had been working to provide Internet connectivity to 3,227 villages in 19 districts of Sindh.
He said the Rs8 billion had been allocated to complete nine projects in Sindh.
He said the Ministry is spending Rs5 billion to lay fibre-optic cable having a total length of 1,905 kilometres in seven districts of Sindh.
Also speaking on the occasion, Federal Minister for Planning and Development, Asad Umar, appreciated the work of the IT Ministry for promotion of exports and also to extend mobile Internet connectivity to the far-flung areas of Pakistan.
He said that the digital and GPS technologies would be utilised to conduct the forthcoming census so as to do accurate counting of the population of the country.
The digital technology would ensure instant availability of census data after the counting of population.
He said the Opposition should support the plan of the government to use the latest technology to hold the next elections in the country as IT was used to revolutionise the sectors of agriculture, health, and education.
The application of the last technology would effectively end the use of unfair means in the general polls.
Asif Aziz, the Chief Commercial Officer of the leading cellular phone company that partners with the IT Ministry for the mobile broadband project, said the provision of broadband services to the villagers would ensure the availability of massive socio-economic opportunities for their progress.
