Information and Communication Technologies in Pakistan. History and analysis of electronic public services (2000-2012)

Hasnain Bokhari, Ph.D. was born in Lahore in 1980. He studied Public Policy (2006, Erfurt University), Computer Science (2004, Bahria University). Between 2012 and 2017 he worked as Assistant Professor (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) at the Chair of Muslim Cultural and Religious History, University of Erfurt where his projects dealt with the issues of internet politics (funded by the DAAD) and peace education (funded by the German Federal Foreign Office (GFO)). Since 2011 he has been teaching at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, Erfurt University. His research interests include ICT4D, eGovernment, Sustainable Development and in this context, he is also associated with the Centre for Development Informatics, University of Manchester, UK.

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Chapter 3.4.1 ICT Developments and Digital Divide in Pakistan (1990 onwards):
Pakistan's population, as stated earlier, mostly comprises rural population. Socio-economic development in Pakistan has been mostly urban- oriented. This disparity has started to become more obvious in terms of public amenities, developmental budgets and modern ICTs such as fixed-line telephony and internet. Increase in population occurred in rural areas whereas development (infrastructural or social) focused more on urban centres. Ratio of population has so far remained 44% (urban) and 56% (rural). From 1990 to 2012, the total population of Pakistan grew from 107 million to 187 million. Telephone network had not covered even 6 million population. In terms of statistics, the expansion of telephone network in 1990 showed 0.8 million subscribers and by 2012 this figure only increased to 5,86 million fixed line subscribers (see Figure 5).
This uneven growth has left the rural centres mostly disconnected from rest of Pakistan. Developments in other ICTs, particularly during the post-1990s, such as wireless networks and internet have been speedier than the traditional wired network in Pakistan. In 1996, the government established Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to regulate, maintain and oversee the provision of telecom services. The teledensity started to increase towards the end of the 1990s particularly. This occurred partially due to deregulation in the telecommunication sector, arrival of internet and mobile network operators. Due to the deregulation policy of the government, new licenses were issued for Long Distance and International (LDI) and Local and Wireless Local Loop (LL, including WLL) services. In the wake of deregulation, PTA started issuing new licenses for data network operators and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). However, as seen in Figure 5, these developments were still not sufficient to help bridge the digital gap (at least in terms of fixed line telephone) between rural and urban Pakistan.
In order to address the digital divide, government of Pakistan under the Ministry of Information Technology launched Universal Service Fund (USF) towards the end of 2006. USF works in collaboration with public and private telecommunication companies which contribute 1.5% of their adjusted revenues whereas the government acts as a facilitator and does not pay any financial contribution in the fund. The idea of the USF particularly focuses on the rural areas in order to increase the level of telecom penetration in the unserved and under-served areas through the provision of local loops and rural voice and broadband communications. Under its rural telecom programme, USF launched development of ICT infrastructure project in 26 various districts. To expand USF's scope and infrastructural network, public sector organisation PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Limited) along with other private mobile network operators including Mobilink, Ufone, Telenor and Warid Telecom have been continuously participating in ICT infrastructure projects all across rural Pakistan. On the other hand, to generate a trickle-down effect of USF initiative for the rural communities, PTA also proposed a rural telecentre project named Rabta Ghar that aimed to establish 400 telecentres throughout the country. The telecentres are multipurpose which are run by a private individual and include the computer access, fax, printing, telephone and broadband internet services.
In terms of investment, during the decade of 2000-2010, in years 2006 and 2007 Pakistan saw a strong foreign investment of USD 1,905 and 1,824 million respectively in the telecom sector (the highest during that decade). Exponential growth in the telecom sector eventually resulted in the creation of 80,000 to 500,000 jobs directly or indirectly. The telecom sector constituted 2 percent of Pakistan's GDP increase every year (with an expectation of 2009-10). The deregulation in telecommunicat