Agreement to set up 149 telecom sites signed in Kabul

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA) has inked an agreement with domestic firms to install 149 telecom sites worth 13 million US dollars, the Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Technology (MoCIT) announced on Tuesday.

MoCIT wrote on its Facebook page the agreement for the third lot of 10th TDF project was signed between officials of the ministry and Afghan Telecom and Etisalat telecom firms.

Acting Minister of Information Technology Maulvi Najibullah Hayat Haqqani, deputy minister Maulvi Hanif Hamza, Chief of ATRA Maulvi Syed Barat Shah Agha Nadeem and officials of telecom companies attended the contract signing ceremony.

Minister Haqqani briefed the ceremony about his ministry’s achievements and developments in last three years.

He also presented information about TDF project of the MoCIT.

He said: “TDF 10th project was approved by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) Prime Minister.”

As per the project, 510 telecom sites will be established in remote areas of the country, the minister explained.

He added: "The contracts of two lots of this project worth 32,814,136 US dollars had previously been signed, its construction work had started and would be executed in near future."

He continued the third lot contract was inked with two domestic telecom companies today.

He said according to the agreement 149 new telecom sites would be constructed in 104 districts of 15 provinces.

Haqqani commented they lived in digital era and his ministry was striving to provide people with telecom services in remote areas of the country.

He directed officials of telecom companies to conduct their work according to the principles and conditions of the agreement and any violation of the law was not acceptable and will be dealt with legally.

kk/ma