The Federal Government has dropped important projects of the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) and National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) in the current budget due to a lack of funds.
According to the document available with ProPakistani, the federal government has dropped several projects of the Special Communication Organization (SCO) under PSDP 2023-24.
The federal government has not allocated a budget for the NTC project named “Feasibility Study for Establishment of National Data Centre and Social Media Application. The total cost of the project is Rs. 483.5 million and it was approved by DDWP on 27-05-2021.
Similarly, the federal government also refused to allocate funds for the NTC project named “Establishment of Data Centre at Karachi”. The total cost of this project is Rs. 1,522 million and MoITT had proposed Rs. 456.6 million allocations for the financial year 2023-24.
According to the document, the federal government has also dropped the PSEB project named “Animation and Gaming Industry Development”. The total cost of the project is Rs. 198.28 million and MoITT had proposed Rs. 100 million for the next financial year.
Similarly, the government has also dropped the PSEB project named “Establishment of IT Park Phase-II. The government has also dropped PSEB projects named “Establishment of IT Park Quetta” and “Train the Trainers Bootcamp in High-End Emerging Technologies”.
Funds have not been allocated for the NTC project named “Long Haul DWDM Core Transmission Equipment” in PSDP 2023-24. The total cost of the project is Rs. 2,524.3 million and MoITT had proposed Rs. 757.3 million for the next financial year.
The government has also dropped the SCO project named “Expansion of Optical Transmission Network”. The total cost of the project is Rs. 3,500 million and MoITT had proposed Rs. 500 million allocations for the next financial year.
The document stated that the government has dropped new schemes named “Expansion of Cellular Services in Unserved/ Underserved Areas of AJK and GB phase-iv”, “Expansion of Hybrid Power Solution at ICT sites for AJK and GB Phase-II”, “Feasibility Study for Migration of IB&CSS System to Convergent Billing System Phase-II” and “Implementation of Critical Telecom Data and Infrastructure Security Regulations Phase-I”.
The government has allocated funds for only one new scheme of the Special Communications Organization (SCO) named “Expansion of GPON FTTH Services in Eleven New and Existing Cities Phase-iv”. The total cost of the Scheme is Rs. 800 million and the government has allocated Rs. 50 million under PSDP 2023-24.
Another amount of Rs. 10 million rupees is expected to be obtained through foreign aid for this project in 2023-24.
