The National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication, chaired by Aminul Haq, also known as Syed Amin ul Haq, on Tuesday once again deferred the Electronic Transactions Amendment Bill, 2026. The deferral came as the government sought more time to reach agreement with the Pakistan Peoples Party over proposed changes to the bill, and it means the legislation will return to the committee at a later meeting.
The Ministry of Law and Justice told the committee that consultations with the PPP were under way and that the bill was at an advanced stage, with consensus expected shortly. That assessment suggests that the remaining disagreements are not seen by the ministry as fundamental obstacles, but as matters that can be resolved through further consultation. The bill will be reconsidered at the next meeting of the committee, when members will have an opportunity to examine any revised position arising from those consultations.
The deferral is not the first for this bill. The fact that the committee “once again” deferred it indicates that it has been before the committee previously and has not yet proceeded. The reason given on Tuesday — the need for more time to reach agreement with the PPP — points to the political dimension of legislation in a coalition setting, where the views of allied parties must be accommodated before a bill can move forward.
Alongside the bill, the committee expressed frustration over persistently poor internet services. Members noted that nearly two years of parliamentary scrutiny had failed to yield meaningful improvement in connectivity. That timeframe is significant: it suggests that the committee has been raising concerns about internet quality for a sustained period, without seeing the improvement it has sought.
Unreliable connectivity persisted even in Karachi and Islamabad, according to the discussion, with smaller towns and remote districts faring worse. The fact that problems are reported in the country’s largest city and in the federal capital, not only in remote areas, underlines the breadth of the concern. Frequent signal drops were said to be disrupting even WhatsApp calls, a form of communication now widely used for both personal and business purposes.
Prolonged power outages were also cited as a factor affecting telecom quality. Telecommunications infrastructure depends on a reliable power supply, and extended outages can disrupt base stations and other equipment, leading to signal drops and poor connectivity. The combination of regulatory, legal and infrastructure factors therefore contributes to the service problems described by the committee.
On the subject of 5G, the PTA chairman said around 70 per cent of services in Karachi had been rolled out and about 2,300 telecom towers had been upgraded. Those figures provide a measure of progress on next-generation mobile services in the country’s largest city, even as the committee expressed frustration about the overall quality of existing services. The rollout of 5G and the upgrading of towers are part of the longer-term effort to improve network capacity and speed.
What happens next has two strands. On the legislative side, the Electronic Transactions Amendment Bill, 2026 will return to the committee at its next meeting, after further consultations with the PPP. Whether consensus is reached by then will determine whether the bill can proceed. On the service quality side, the committee’s frustration, the PTA’s show-cause notices, and the obstacle of court stay orders all point to a continuing debate about how to improve connectivity in practice.
For users, the immediate reality remains unreliable connectivity in many areas, with signal drops affecting even basic services such as WhatsApp calls. The committee’s discussion on Tuesday did not announce a new remedy for that problem, but it did record, once again, the scale of parliamentary concern about it.
Source: Business Recorder and The Nation, 4 November 2026
