Senate Committee Aims to Strengthen IT and Telecom Sector

Recently the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications chaired meeting with a motto to make IT and Telecom sector better. Committee underlined the need for further reinforcing services of ministry and also discussed the methods to tackle challenges relating to information technology. During the meeting Shahi Syed discussed that how relevant departments or divisions of information technology legged behind in providing information about any wanted person which was required by the law enforcement agencies.

Senate Committee Aims to Strengthen IT and Telecom Sector

During the meeting, Senate Committee was also informed about the matter of budget allocation. Budget for the current financial year and its utilization of the Information Technology and Telecommunications Division, Special Communication Organization (SCO), Virtual University (VU) of Pakistan, National Information Technology Board and Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) was discussed.

The committee was informed that Information Technology and Telecommunication Division was allocated a total of Rs.229,000,00 non-development budget for 2015-16. In this amount Rs.130,994,550 were spent under various heads upto March 31, 2016.

Regarding development budget, Committee was told that Rs.8,000,000 were allocated for international coordination unit while its expenditure upto March 2016 stood at Rs.3,374,025.Similarly Rs.4525000 were allocated for strengthening of server room project out of which, Rs.37,16,367 were spent upto March 31, 2016. About SCO development projects, It was told that Rs.118,840,000 for GSM expansion for Gilgit-Baltistan were allocated for 2015-16, out of which 83,605,073 upto March 31, 2016. For construction of Cross-border optical fiber cable system between China and Pakistan a total of 50,000,000 were allocated out of which Rs.35,000,000 were spent upto March 31, 2016.

Different ministry divisions including Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) briefed about its budgetary allocations and its expenditure during the current financial year 2015-16.In the end, Senate committee discussed the way out to face the challenges regarding budget and overall in the IT and Telecom sector