Grey Trafficking should be controlled at the earliest and those allegedly involved must be brought to book.
This was opined by Ms. Anusha Rehman, State Minister for IT & Telecom while chairing a follow up meeting regarding monitoring of Grey Trafficking yesterday.
Mr. Akhlaq A. Tarrar, Secretary IT, Mr. Azmat Ranjha, Additional Secretary IT, Dr. Ismail Shah, Acting Chairman PTA and representatives from law enforcement institutions were also present in the meeting to discuss the counter strategy regarding Grey Trafficking as well as the respective role of all stakeholders.
The State Minister for IT, Ms. Anusha Rehman, who chaired the meeting, acknowledged the very fact that Grey Traffic had started to decrease considerably due to the onerous efforts of PTA and FIA under the umbrella of ministry but stressed on taking measures for its further control at the earliest since it was the need of the hour.
During the meeting the participants were given a detailed briefing regarding the Grey Trafficking whereby it was endorsed by all that there was a dire need of checking this menace.
It was mutually agreed and fully endorsed by all stakeholders that with the help of a comprehensive plan of action there would be a substantial decrease in the quantum of Grey Trafficking in coming four weeks.
Moreover, it was also reiterated that all those culprits who are allegedly involved in the phenomenon, must be brought to book.
It is worth mentioning here that the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications had issued a policy directive last year to establish the International Clearing House (ICH) Exchange for international incoming calls for Long Distance International, Fixed-Line Local Loop, Wireless Local Loop and Mobile Operators: In furtherance to the Ministry’s directive a committee was constituted by the Federal Investigation Agency to function in coordination with the PTA so that to curb nuisance of grey traffic.
Accordingly, in the month of May, this year, a separate committee got constituted with the mandate of investigation and detections of illegal setups, planning of raid actions and follow-up of the cases, comprising of officers from both of the agencies i.e. the PTA and the FIA.
The recent raid and seizure of illegal exchange by the joint team of FIA and PTA was a result of the initiative taken by the IT Ministry, under the leadership of Ms. Anusha Rehman, the State Minister for IT.
Grey trafficking is a major issue for telecom operators as according to a rough estimate approximately 500 million minutes of illegal calls are made every month from Pakistan to abroad. Since the PTA is mandated to stop grey trafficking, a vigilance cell of the Authority has already started working formally to monitor grey trafficking while law enforcement agencies are tasked with legal interception of calls.
Pakistani officials are bloody thugs, very corrupt and looting their people with both hands. International calls are at least 6 times higher than other neighboring countries and on top they block Voip so people don’t have any choice to avoid being robbed by pakistani govt.
Dear Anu,
You aren’t a person with technical background and completely dependent on what PTA officials tell you and these people are in fact not to save anything but LDIs and PTCL. On the other hand if Pakistan opens doors to VoIP and local service providers start selling VoIP services across globe to Pakistanis overseas then what overseas Pakistanis pay to grey telephony operators will legally go in pockets of local VoIP operators and ultimately to government. When India, Europe, US can open doors to VoIP why not we? Why are we following GCC countries when we are not done with debate to find if VoIP is good or bad, but in fact following blindly what PTA is saying (following LDIs & Etisalat footsteps in fact) and appreciating FIA reporting its success of capturing grey traffickers…why not we debate on this to find if VoIP is good for us or not ?
But if we issue licenses to VoIP operators running from within Pakistan, I am sure this money will go to Government and nowhere else. Do you find any reason people still using illegal VoIP when they can get it legally at reasonable rates ….removing profit margins of illegal traffickers ?
the whole thing started and increased due to ICH and also former Interior minister R.M was supervising grey trafficking companies and receiving his illegal share from local companies running VoIP telephony… if people can call to and from Pakistan with reasonable rates then why would they prefer illegal means… the reason is LEGAL higher profits directly going into the pockets of giants (PTCL and Telcos)…
the need of the hour is to appoint a technical person a minister IT instead of filling the seat with a political personality…
oh bai, pelay funds bankon me investment kar kar k coror pati ho gae hen. phir ab 3G game tayar ha.all these bloody old stupids aer changing their seats only. khatay jao koi nai pochay ga.