Prime Minister Pakistan Raja Pervaiz Ashraf inaugurated the Cellular Village Connection Trial (CVCT) project at Attmuqam, Neelum Valley AJ&K on Wednesday. President and Prime Minister AJ&K, federal minister for information and federal minister AK&GB were also present on the occasion. Chairman PTA Dr. Mohammed Yaseen and DG SCO General Khalid Rao informed the Prime Minister about the efforts made for development of telecommunication facilities at AJ&K in general and atNeelumValleyat particular. The deregulation of the telecom sector brought about a revolutionary change which saw huge increase in subscriber base, teledensity and coverage area.

People of NeelumValley were however devoid of these state of the art telecommunication facilities due to security concerns. In order to address the issue PTA initiated Cellular Village Connection Trial (CVCT) project at Attmuqam. The equipment was provided to SCO free of cost by Huawei through efforts of PTA. SCO successfully launched the project which is not only providing cellular services to the people but also catering for the needs of the defense organizations. In order to extend the project up to Taobat, the last town ofNeelumValley, Universal Service Fund (USF) may be utilized. At present about 1.96 billion Rupees have been deposited by the telecom operators as USF for AJK which is more than sufficient to provide telecom coverage to all the important towns of the NeelumValley.

The Prime Minister stressed upon need of telecommunication services for socio-economic development of the area. He appreciated the efforts made by PTA and ensured provision of necessary funds in order to expand telecommunication services to other parts of NeelumValley.