ISLAMABAD ( BMZ REPORT )
Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications (MoIT) clarified formulation of telecom sector policies was its exclusive domain being defined as federal government for telecom sector as per Telecom Act. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has the designated role of implementing policies formulated by the government and to provide inputs to the Ministry for devising policy, said statement. Accordingly, the currently underway initiative of review and integration of all telecom sector related policies to cater to needs of the emerging technology and market scenarios, is being spearheaded and the requisite drafts and manuscripts etc are under preparation with the MoIT and not the PTA.
Initial review period of the policies including Deregulation Policy, the Cellular Mobile Policy and Broadband Policy etc ended in 2008 but no attention was given to requisite review during tenure of previous government.Minister for IT, Ms Anusha Rehman put due emphasis on this crucial subject immediately after assuming office and the process is underway in a clear, transparent and inclusive process.
It has been decided all existing policies would be reviewed updated and integrated into one manuscript to remove chances of conflict and redundancies among provisions for different sub-sectors. Therefore, MoIT and the consultants engaged in collaboration with World Bank have sought comments of all stakeholders including PTA, during the policy review process.
The comments of stakeholders including those of PTA and Frequency Allocation Board (FAB) are currently being compiled to produce an official consultation draft. The first official draft of the said policy will be concluded shortly and a large scale public consultation duly advertised in the national media will be launched, based on this official draft, to seek the comments of all public sector and industry stakeholders as well as public at large, media and civil society. The focus of the government is on quality of the output and integrity of the process and its transparency to ensure that the policies laid down will effectively cater to emerging telecom landscape for years to come.