Islamabad: Federal Minister for Information Technology &Telecom Sardar Aseff Ahmad Ali has appreciated the role of PTA as a regulator and said that PTA is one of the best organizations of the country. The cellular mobile industry of Pakistan has recently achieved 100 million subscription mark which is a great achievement.

He said this while inaugurating “Online Complaint Management System” at PTAHeadquarters today. The new system developed by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) would enable telecom consumers to lodge their complaints regarding telecom services online and to have prompt response on them. This system is integrated with operators and the telecom Authority.  Chairman PTA Dr. Mohammad Yaseen, Member Finance, Syed Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi, and Member Technical, Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar, were also present during the ceremony.

The Minister said that Pakistan telecom industry was growing at an astounding pace after the deregulation of the sector. The mobile sector growth has been extraordinary and this sector has become a model for other countries across the world. A number of factors have played role in it including investor friendly government policies and healthy competition introduced by PTA which has encouraged operators to an extra mile for making a strong subscriber base. The predictions, estimates and forecasts made for Pakistan mobile industry proved to be counterfactual and the subscriber base proceeded with growth higher than the forecasted one.

He said that PTA is doing a good job by addressing the grievances and complaints of consumers of the telecom sector and it is ensuring the provision of quality services. The launch of ‘Online Complaint Management System’ would prove to be a significant step towards the achievement of these objectives, he added.

The Minister said, “Government is there to provide policy guidelines and directions, it is the responsibility of the institution to deliver to the public in line with the policy guidelines”. He also discussed with the Secretary IT and chairman PTA the plan and scope of starting training programs in IT sector for educated youth of the country to enable them to get jobs in local and international markets.

On this occasion, Chairman PTA briefed the Minister on Pakistan telecom sector development. He said that PTA has successfully established a thriving telecom industry in Pakistan which is providing the state of the art telecom, broadband and ICT services.

The Chairman said that PTA has encouraged development of local contents and created awareness on it.  It has introduced Information Rabta Portal to facilitate internet users to get information on Pakistan.  He said PTA organized Consumer Forums at different cities to seek views of consumers on telecom services.  PTA also introduced new system to block unwanted calls/SMS.

 

Khurram A. Mehran

Director (PR)