The Senate Standing Committee on IT and Telecom has deferred the Pakistan Telecommunication Re-organisation Amendment Bill 2026 amid deepening parliamentary and public opposition over its property rights provisions, with senators from both coalition and opposition parties questioning key clauses and the Prime Minister establishing an inquiry committee to review the legislation before it proceeds further.
The bill, which was approved by the National Assembly on June 11, a day before the presentation of the federal budget 2026-27, was presented in the Senate on June 15 and referred to the standing committee following objections from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf senators. Committee chairperson Senator Palwasha Khan convened a meeting on June 16, which was not attended by any Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf senator, while Pakistan Peoples Party Senator Nadeem Ahmed Bhutto and Pakistan Muslim League-N Senators Dr. Afnan Ullah Khan and Sadia Abbasi were present. Federal IT Minister Shaza Fatima and IT Secretary Zarar Khan told the committee that the amendments were intended to accelerate fibre penetration and support the expansion of internet infrastructure across the country, but senators from the Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League-N deferred the bill regardless, questioning specifically why telecom towers and related equipment had been included in what they understood to be primarily a Right of Way framework for fiberisation. Senator Palwasha Khan confirmed the committee intends to delete the word “towers” from the bill before returning it to the Senate, after which it would need to go back to the National Assembly.
The specific clause that triggered the sharpest reaction is Section 27B, which proposes fines of up to Rs. 50 million on any property owner, public land agency, or institution that refuses telecom companies Right of Way access for the installation of fibre cables, towers, or related equipment. Senator Palwasha Khan noted that under the current wording, if a land-owning agency disallowed a company from erecting a tower in a public park or green belt, it could face a fine of up to Rs. 50 million, a provision she said requires amendment to protect the rights of the public. The bill also introduced a definitional shift, with Right of Way, previously described as a right to pass over land, now redefined as access to enter or use premises, a change that critics argue meaningfully expands the scope of what telecom operators can demand from property owners.
The controversy has also extended into the National Assembly’s own committee process, with PPP Member of the National Assembly Sharmila Farooqui telling Dawn she had raised reservations about earlier versions of the bill during a January 2026 committee meeting, arguing that the PPP’s legislative committee should have been consulted before the draft was advanced. NA Standing Committee chairman Syed Aminul Haque acknowledged that the inclusion of towers alongside optical fibre provisions had been overlooked by members during the final sitting. Opposition alliance Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Ayin-i-Pakistan has gone further, raising formal constitutional objections to the entire bill and urging the Prime Minister to ensure opposition representation in the inquiry committee reviewing the legislation, arguing that a government-only committee cannot provide the impartiality the situation requires. The alliance characterised the bill as a breach of fundamental property rights enshrined in Pakistan’s constitution and described the Prime Minister’s decision to establish an inquiry committee as an acknowledgment that the legislation was inadequately scrutinised.
The IT Ministry has maintained throughout that the new Right of Way clauses do not permit telecom operators to enter individual private property without the owner’s permission or due legal process, and do not authorise compulsory acquisition of private land, insisting the amendments are designed strictly to accelerate telecom infrastructure deployment and support the fiberisation agenda following the 5G spectrum auction earlier this year. Pakistan currently has around 50,000 telecom towers, of which approximately 26,000 are owned by Ufone and Telenor jointly and Zong, with Jazz having offloaded nearly all of its 10,700 towers to Engro Enfrashare. Independent tower companies now hold nearly half the country’s tower portfolio, with Engro Enfrashare dominating at more than 70 percent of that segment, followed by Edotco at approximately 14 percent, a structural reality that gives the Right of Way framework significant commercial implications well beyond individual property disputes.
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