IT Minister Anusha Rahman says Internet penetration up to 15%

The State Minister for Information and Technology, Anusha Rahman, has revealed that the internet penetration in Pakistan reached 15%.

Attending UNESCO’s Mobile Learning Week Forum at Paris, Rahman said that information communication technology (ICT) is the key enabler of socio-economic development. She also added that the government of Pakistan has accorded its highest priority to the development of ICT infrastructure and applications to accelerate the digitization in the country.

“Recently the present government has issued a long-awaited telecom policy, marked as landmark document by industry experts for the incorporation of numerous measures to accelerate the digitization in the country,” she said in a press-release from Paris.

Pakistan is one of the worst countries in the world in terms of number of internet users, ranked at a miserable 147 but it seems like the situation is improving at a decent pace. She credited the recent surge of internet penetration to the introduction of 3G and 4G services in the country, revealing that percentage has surged to 15%, up from 13.8% at the end of 2015. In terms of internet speeds though, Pakistan still remains one of the worst and is currently ranked in the bottom four in the whole world for LTE speeds.

Earlier, the minister called upon UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and shared with her the vision and endeavors of current government to spur the socio-economic development. UNESCO DG praised the role and efforts of current government and remarked it as highly impressive. Furthermore, Rahman also said that the government of Pakistan endeavors to use the technology for the uplift of socio-economic development through public-private partnerships, highlighting the recent talks with Cisco and an ICT project for girls with Microsoft.

“ICT for girls project is one the endeavors in place under which thousands of girls will be trained by Microsoft on coding and computing to increase their employability potential,” she said.

A lawyer by profession, Anusha Rahman became the head of federal Information Technology and Telecommunication Ministry in 2013 and has held the position since. She was also recently awarded the “GEM-Tech Global Achievers 2015” award by the United Nations.

Source- TheNews