200 acres for IT project approved it
KARACHI,January 19,2005: The Sindh governor, Ishratul Ibad, has given approval to the proposal of over 200 acres of land for setting up an internet media city in the metropolis.
He gave the approval while chairing a meeting of the Sindh Information Technology Advisory Board held at the Governor House on Wednesday. The governor is also the chairman of the Sindh IT Advisory Board.
The Sindh governor, Ishratul Ibad, called for formulating a vision with three-, five- and 10-year targets for promoting IT in the province. The meeting was attended by IT Minister Mustafa Kamal, Principal Secretary Brig (Retd) Akhtar Zamin and concerned officers from the private and public sectors.
The governor expressed hope that with coordinated efforts and by utilising the best available capabilities, Sindh could secure first position in the sector. He said that benefits of all these efforts must reach the general public.
He directed the IT minister to make available on the internet all necessary forms and information of all departments including those of educational institutions, so that people could download their required information without having to stand in queues.
The governor appreciated the minister’s initiative regarding setting up of IT centres in various places of the province, particularly in the rural areas. The Sindh IT minister, Syed Mustafa Kamal, later told APP that the proposal for allocation of land for the purpose was submitted by the Sindh IT department some three months ago. It would now be submitted before the Sindh chief minister for approval.
Mr Kamal said the said land was located on the Link Road on the Super Highway. He said the governor also issued directives that the land be handed over to the Sindh IT department.
The IT minister pointed that the government intended to provide infrastructure, utilities as well as linkages on the pattern of the Dubai media city, adding that this would enable IT firms to come and start their work there.
Mr Kamal believed that this would greatly help in attracting foreign investment as well as contributing towards bringing about an IT revolution in the country, especially in the province of Sindh and particularly in Karachi.
He said that with regard to setting up call centres, the governor directed that investors be facilitated, and that an aggressive approach be adopted in this respect, so that more and more job opportunities could be created.
The world call centre would be established in a five storey building and would provide at least 5,000 seats to call centre agents, he said. The IT minister said the one-year performance of the IT department was also evaluated during the meeting, of which the governor was appreciative.
He informed that in 2004, over Rs300 million were spent on various IT projects. The government of Sindh’s share was to the tune of Rs113 million while the federal government provided Rs200 million.
Comparing the sum with that of the previous four years, he said only Rs0.7 million were spent on IT projects in the province. Mr Kamal said that four major projects were completed in 2004, which included imparting of training to 15,000 government employees, networking of the Sindh Secretariat and Tughlaq House, provision of 200 computers and other hardware to the departments of finance, education, health, planning and development and services and general administration.
The IT minister, Mustafa Kamal, said that networking at the Governor and Chief Minister houses and all secretariats would be completed in the next three months. He also said that before the next financial year, the system of video conferencing would also be completed, adding this would make the decision-making process speedy besides saving millions of rupees spent on travelling.
Source: Dawn
Date:1/20/2005
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