To reinvigorate the Telephone Industries of Pakistan (TIP), the government has decided to give it over to the National Radio & Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC).
The move has been approved by the federal Cabinet, according to a tweet from federal Minister of Economic Affairs Omar Ayub Khan.
He went on to say that a crucial Haripur industry will now be restored and operating, resulting in the creation of new job opportunities in a crucial technology sector.
Syed Amin Ul Haq, the federal minister of information technology and telecommunications (IT&T), announced that a summary of the TIP’s transfer to the NRTC had been moved to the Cabinet. He stated that his government is willing to give over the TIP to the NRTC provided the latter is willing to take on the TIP’s Rs. 7.9 billion in liabilities that have been stacking up since 2004, as well as its pensions and future obligations to its employees.
An inter-ministerial committee comprised of the federal ministers of finance, defence production, and information and technology has been formed to investigate the problem, according to Haq.
According to official sources, the TIP became non-functional after its annual earnings dropped from Rs. 700 million to around Rs. 20 million in the recent past. It is a state-owned enterprise (SOE) that is now losing money and draining an annual pay support budget of Rs. 500 million.
The TIP has 432 kanals of land, as well as infrastructure and skilled labour. Soon after taking power, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, the Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunications, announced at a press conference that the government is ready to establish a mobile phone manufacturing plant in Haripur in collaboration with the private sector, abandoning plans to privatise the TIP.
The goal of the NRTC is to design, develop, and manufacture telecommunications equipment, electronic systems, and IT-based solutions for military and commercial use. Its quality policy is to supply world-class telecommunication equipment to its customers that satisfies all of their operating needs on schedule and at a reasonable cost.
Prime Minister Imran Khan paid a visit to the NRTC in Haripur, where he officially opened the production facility for Pakistan’s first indigenously developed ventilators. He praised the NRTC and the Ministry of Science and Technology for their efforts, calling it a watershed moment for Pakistan.
Source: propakistani
