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A senate sub-committee in Pakistan has flagged concern after widespread internet degradation and fuel theft from telecom sites due to which about 16 per cent of the country's cellular infrastructure has been affected in 11 months, Dawn reported.
As per the Pakistani media outlet, the Senate Standing Committee on Information and Technology was informed on Monday that more than 9,200 incidents of theft and vandalism had hit about 16 per cent of the country's cellular infrastructure in 11 months. According to Dawn, Sindh recorded the highest number of 3,938 fuel theft cases across 31 districts, followed by Punjab with 2,827 incidents in 38 districts. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa reported 1,668 incidents across 25 districts, while Balochistan reported 716 incidents in 26 districts. During the briefing, officials of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said that persistent loadshedding had severely deteriorated service continuity by rapidly depleting backup batteries and exhausting local generators. Dawn further reported that in order to build long-term resilience, the PTA has engaged National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) and the power division to secure dedicated priority power feeders and speed up the deployment of smart transformers for critical telecom nodes. Due to the alarming situation, the sub-committee directed relevant departments to map high-theft hotspots and instructed district and provincial authorities to handle complaints strictly under the law. The committee underlined that internet access must be classified under essential services criteria and hence directed all telecom operators to execute immediate safeguards against fuel theft so that Pakistan's connectivity standards are met without interruption. Pakistan has routinely reported outages and internet throttling due to natural calamities and political control. Disruptions have been reported in past due to heavy rainfall which kept major cities suffering due to slow internet, no browsing speed, connection disruptions and outages in online services. Last year in August, Amnesty International had flagged concerns and repeatedly called on Pakistani authorities to refrain from internet shutdowns which result in restricting movement and flow of timely information-- something which was observed during the protests in Balochistan. (ANI)
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