Multi-billion Universal Service Fund in offing, says Awais
By Ali Imran

ISLAMABAD—Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari Saturday said the government would bring out its Universal Service Fund policy by February next year, setting the stage for the penetration of mobile telephone service in the un-served and underserved areas of the country.
"The importance of funding telecommunication infrastructure in the rural areas cannot be underestimated for the long-term socio-economic benefit and to reduce the 'digital divide' between rural and urban areas," he said in a statement following a fresh round of a series of meetings being held between the telecom operators and the ministry officials to share input and views on the framework and composition of the proposed policy. The Saturday meeting was attended by representatives from all the leading telecom operators of the country while the government side was represented among others by IT Secretary Farrakh Qayyum, member telecom Nooruddin Baqai, experts and consultants.
The minister said the establishment of the USF and the allocation of funds to operators is an important factor in accelerating the availability of telecommunication services in rural areas. "Fixed-line and mobile operators can play an important role in providing coverage to rural areas in particular where there is no fixed line service," he said.
He said the USF will be financed by revenues collected from all telecommunication licensees through a universal service fund collection in addition to other funding sources. He said the fund already boasted of around Rs 2 billion and they were now preparing a framework for its distribution among the operators in a transparent manner to reach out to un-served areas.
Awais said the ministry had already conducted various consultative sessions with the telecom industry, including WLL and LDI operators while a similar session would also be held with representatives of the internet and IT industry before finalizing the policy which would be out within the next three months.
He said the USF policy would incorporate the views and inputs of all the stakeholders and it would be implanted in a transparent manner through an open and well-defined mechanism. He said the government had also accepted a demand from telecom operators to ensure their participation in the management of the fund besides allowing public availability of the necessary information.
The minister estimated that around Rs 1.5 billion would be available every year in this fund to provide financial assistance to companies to set up operations in such areas where the cost of the operations was too high due to a lack of infrastructure or scattered populations. "These areas would be other than the cities and towns the mobile companies are bound to reach within three years as part of the mobile cellular policy obligations," he added. He said mobile telecommunication had come to recognized all over the world as the most dependable way of improving social economic conditions of the people.