Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A standing committee of the Senate was informed on Wednesday that the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) had been projected to generate Rs3.274 billion revenue from services by the end of 2015-16.

Briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication, the NTC director general said the total revenue by the end of current financial year was expected to reach Rs3.274 billion, while operating costs were expected to reach Rs3.111 billion. The NTC was expecting to generate a profit of Rs163 million in the current financial year.

The committee, which met with Senator Shahi Syed in the chair at the Parliament House, was informed that the NTC would generate revenue from different sources – telephone revenue Rs1.665 billion, DATA services Rs545 million, WLL telephone Rs87.64 million, International Gateway Revenue Rs162.14 million, Interconnect revenue Rs8.15 million, co-location revenue Rs347.55 million, rent of circuits Rs6.87 million, revenue on incoming international calls Rs3.38 million, local access connectivity revenue Rs2.53 million, joint venture revenue VSAT Services Rs8.718 million, miscellaneous receipts Rs12.64 million and other income Rs334 million. The NTC official said the corporation was introducing a portable system, which would be accessible from anywhere. The committee appreciated the performance of the NTC and told it to be more innovative and expand its services beyond government departments.

The committee also received briefings from the NTC, Telecom Foundation (TF), Universal Service Fund (USF) and the National ICT R&D Fund about their expenditure, sources of revenue and projects. The Telecommunication Foundation told the committee that so far they had collected revenue of Rs296.5 million and its total expenditure was Rs253.1 million. The profit generated was used to run 12 schools for the children of the low-income PTCL employees.

The USF briefed the committee that their source of revenue is the 1.5% share they collect from the telecom companies from their total revenue. The CEO of the USF told the committee that the fund collected was used to provide telephone and Internet services to underserved areas of Pakistan. It also clarified that the remaining fund was held as a trust by the government and was not used for any other development purposes. He said that so far the USF had provided telecommunication facility to 310 underserved towns and 5,500 km fibre optic to these areas. In addition, the USF established 50 computer labs at Bait-ul-Mal for women empowerment centres. He said the USF planned to establish 500 tele-centres to serve as one stop for telecommunication services. The committee appreciated their performance and suggested that special attention should be paid to FATA.

The National ICT Research and Development Fund works on the pattern of the USF and receive 0.5% from the revenue generated by telecommunication companies. However, the fund was utilised for the promotion of research-based projects in the ICT sector. Most of the funds were provided to the public and private universities for the final year projects of undergraduate ICT students. In addition to this, the organisation was going to establish technology incubation centre in Islamabad to promote research in the country. The committee asked the USF and the National ICT R&D to provide details of their revenue and expenditure of the last three years.