Countrywide cyber technology base
LAHORE – Information Technology ministers of Punjab, NWFP and Balochistan will meet Federal Information Technology Minister Awais Leghari in Islamabad on June 10 to seek federal government help in development of a cyber technology base in different parts of the country. This was decided at an inter-provincial IT coordination meeting held here on June 9 with Punjab IT Minister Abdul Aleem Khan in the chair.
The meeting was attended by NWFP IT Minister Hussain Kanju, Balochistan Minister Matiullah Agha, Punjab IT Secretary Saeed Alvi, NWFP IT Secretary Zahoor Khalil and Balochistan IT Secretary Khalid Mahmood. Sindh IT minister could not attend due to the on-going political changes in that province. The provincial ministers discussed different issues presently confronting the information technology sector in different provinces.
The Punjab IT secretary briefed the Punjab, NWFP and Balochistan ministers on the pace of development in this emerging field with special reference to computerisation of land record, Access to Justice Programme, Motor Transport Record and Information System projects in the province.
Later talking to newsmen, Punjab Information Technology Minister Abdul Aleem Khan stressed the need of standardising IT curricula all over the country. He said that the provincial ministers, during their meeting with the Federal IT minister, would demand the establishment of IT affiliation boards for registering information technology institutions, which were up to the mark. Khan said that all the provinces had agreed to urge the federal government to withdraw the proposal of imposing GST on software companies.
He said that federal government would be asked to hand over the programme for IT labs in the government-run schools to the provincial governments. He also stressed the need of establishing IT centres in remote areas and improvement in the provincial information technology boards. He said that Punjab Information Technology Board was being restructured. He said that a Chief Information Technology Officer would be hired from the private sector who would act as the technical head of the organisation.
NWFP Minister Hussain Ahmad Kanju said that the NWFP government would set up an IT centre of excellence in Peshawar for the training of youth from NWFP and Afghanistan. He said that efforts were on to develop an Urdu software to make the less-educated people computer literate. Kanju said that the seminaries wanted computer facilities for the education of youth. Balochistan IT Minister, Matiullah Agha said that there was negligible IT base in his province. “We are trying to set up IT education institutes at district level,” he told reporters. He said that the website of Balochistan government was being developed.
Source: The News
Date:6/10/2004
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