Prime Minister Gilani’s opening statement while Chairing 24th Board Meeting of Universal Service Fund

Islamabad: Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has said that the Government considers development in IT and Telecom sectors to be of paramount importance for the overall progress of the country. He said that the promise of ICTs enabled by wide access of the cellular medium and broadband has made the ICT sector a top strategic priority for the democratic government for overall development of Pakistan.

The Prime Minister expressed these views while chairing 24th board meeting of universal service fund as Chairman of the BOD here at the PM’s House this afternoon.

The potential of these sectors, he added, cannot be over-emphasized in delivering value to the economy through socio-economic benefits to the masses and creation of job opportunities. The government for these precise reasons, he said, has taken steps to enable further expansion of the programs of mass importance undertaken by the Universal Service Fund and the R and D Funds of the GoP.

The Prime Minister said that the ability to communicate and to derive the benefits of information driven era is no more a privilege of the elite but a basic right of all segments of society. He said that it is heartening to know that the Government has, over the past three years, undertaken a well structured and successful program for Universal access for unserved and underserved areas through transparent targeted subsidy mechanism. Similarly, an industry funded program, he maintained, for promotion of Research and Development with emphasis on industry academia linkages and technical human resource development has been another success story.

He said that the dream of cross country connectivity for all is about to be realized and we are on road to establishing a sustainable R and D platform and there is a now need to look at further innovative and diverse ICT resource development uses of these funds to gear up for the future. He assured of his government’s support in this regard and vowed to provide opportunities to the people of Pakistan, which modern day technologies envisage.

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