Islamabad: Pakistan President Rafique Tarar on Thursday flagged off an ambitious program aimed at giving access to the Internet to all of its citizens.

The first 93 cities and towns went online under the Universal Internet Access Program. Under the three-phase program, which has been chalked out for the next two years, Pakistan plans to connect over 1,000 cities and small towns with the Internet eventually. The government plans to spend about Rs 300 million on the program to ensure its success, officials of the state-owned telecommunications network, PTCL, said.

In his inaugural address, Tarar said: "No country can develop faster if it does not possess a strong IT and telecom infrastructure. IT and telecom services are the gauges to measures the economic health of a country."

Tarar said it was encouraging to see government initiatives in the information technology (IT) sector showing positive results. He said the network for IT and telecom should have alternate information highways. "We should have an international level Internet gateway exchange to meet the growing future requirements at an affordable cost," the NNI news agency quoted the Pakistan president as saying.

Lauding the Ministry of Science and Technology and Telecommunications for achieving difficult milestones in the sector, Tarar said: "It is heartening to note that the minister (Atta-ur-Rehman) had taken bold initiatives by constituting 10 groups of experts that even included overseas Pakistanis and experts to work out an aggressive IT policy. I would like to acknowledge the efforts made in this direction," he added.

He said recent reductions in domestic and international bandwidth rates were also encouraging and would help in the rapid promotion of the Internet and IT education. "In fact we need our country to be illuminated through the beams of satellites and submarine fiber cables. Domestic fiber backbone should be reinforced to match the increasing traffic needs," Taraar said.

Atta-ur-Rehman underlined the need for rapidly spreading information technology in the country. He said the launch of the Universal Internet Access Program was a historic occasion.

"We were living in the knowledge-driven world. Now the only difference among countries is education," he said, adding that Pakistan needed to enhance the quantum of knowledge in order to "match the impending challenges."

The minister said with the advent of the Internet the world has been transformed into a global village. "Now we are living in a world where distances have lost their meanings. It's still not too late. We can come at par with the developed countries by dint of information technology," the minister added.