National Data Centre, a step towards "Accelerated Digitization" in Pakistan

National Data Centre, a step towards

ISLAMABAD: (APP) State Minister for Information Technology Anusha Rehman Khan on Wednesday said that establishment of National Data Center (NDC) is a step towards achievement of "Accelerated Digitization".

In pursuance of the Vision of "Digital Pakistan" of Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) under the guidance of Ministry of IT and telecom has established a cloud based National Data Center for the government and public sector entities.

Addressing the participants of inaugural ceremony of National Data Center Anusha Rehman said, "it's a historic occasion for the government and NTC for achieving yet another milestone committed by our government."

The inauguration ceremony was attended by senior officials of the Federal and provincial governments, ICT professionals from public/private sector and CEOs of Telecom companies.

It will be the first Cloud based National Data Center which is meant to assist the government entities to host their data and applications in a secure environment. This National Data Centre (NDC) is a State of Art modular, scalable and highly secure.

"We have witnessed a dynamic revolution in the sphere of IT and Telecom Sector, our broadband penetration, which was merely less than 3% in 2013 has crossed 24% now. We are already working to provide ICT services and to connect the un-connected in whole of Pakistan with a special focus on un-served and under-served areas of the country and there will be a complete roll-out by December, 2018", the minister said.

Anusha Rehman said under the ICT for girls programme, around 100 girls schools in rural areas will be equipped with technical training.

She congratulated the legislators MoIT team for preparing a comprehensive Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act.

The objective of the law is to provide secure online usage to the people, ahe added.

On the occasion, Chairman NTC Brig (R) Viqar Rashid Khan said NTC has made record growth and expansion in the development of its network and infrastructure during last two years.

He said, NTC expanded its presence from 54 districts in 2013 to 84 cities and sites in 2016.

He said around 36% growth was observed in broadband connections.

It is also pertinent to mention that, NTC is amongst those few organizations which has reorganized itself according to the demands of the market and public sector entities and became profitable.

Today, NTC stands totally re-invented and transformed, traversing a long course with state of the art network exchanges.

This Data center is designed meeting Tier-III standards and will provide services like Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

It will help government in facilitating e-Governance, e-Commerce and e-Health etc.