Why Pakistan needs a dedicated Digital Economy Ministry Pakistan's telecom competition rules have been stuck since 2015 because two institutions still cannot agree who has authority to write them — and in 2026, instead of resolving that decade of gridlock, the government is running two separate efforts, in two separate bodies, both claiming the job of leading the digital economy.

Abstract

Pakistan's Telecom Policy 2015 assigned the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication responsibility for drafting dedicated competition rules for the telecom sector. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority submitted its first draft in 2016. A decade, several court rulings, and dozens of inter-institutional meetings later, the rules still do not exist — because MoITT and PTA have never resolved which of them has the legal authority to finalise them. The ministry circulated another revised draft on 7 July 2026. PTA submitted comments on 27 July. The dispute continues, even as the market it is meant to govern just underwent its biggest structural change in years: the PTCL-Telenor merger has cut the country from four major mobile operators to three, and PTA has separately fined the remaining operators nearly Rs740 million for service violations while the National Assembly's IT Standing Committee holds hearings on network degradation severe enough to draw its own attention.