Leghari approves IT projects worth Rs208m | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Leghari approves IT projects worth Rs208m

KARACHI – The Federal Minister for IT and Telecom, Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari, has approved five projects worth Rs208 million to strengthen PakistanÂ’s IT industry by improving its quality and standard.

The approval to these projects was given at the ministerial review meeting held at the office of the Ministry of Information Technology with the minister in the chair on Thursday.

Senior officials of the ministry and heads of the attached departments were also present in the meeting.

The meeting approved setting up of a national IT development and promotion unit at a cost of Rs38 million for carrying out in-depth analysis of specific areas and making recommendations to the ministry.

The unit will provide a forum in which the private sector, the academia and other subject matter experts will collectively carry out studies to identify impediments and the enablers in the areas of e-governance, IT industry development and human resource development.

The minister stressed on the importance of having specific timetables by which each working group should deliver tangible output in the form of written reports containing explicit recommendations.

He also urged each working group to have well-defined terms of reference to avoid general discussions and meetings that do not yield positive results.

The meeting also approved a project worth Rs36 million to support the local IT-enabled service industry in getting COPC 2004 certification.

Call Operations Performance Centre (COPC) is a world-renowned standard for quality certification of call centres.

These standards developed by a core group including representatives of the American Express, Dell, Microsoft, Novell, and other major companies ensure that companies involved in the call centre business perform up to a given standard.

Setting up of a software technology park in Islamabad was also approved in the meeting.

Under the project to be executed by the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) at a cost of Rs87 million, a suitable public building would be converted into a technology park by extending high-speed fibre connectivity, backup international connectivity via VSAT, and providing modern facilities.

The technology park would be available to all the local IT companies but it is expected; that the fast growing IT-enabled services industry will avail most of the space in the technology park.

The meeting was told that already three software technology parks established by the IT ministry in the public sector is currently at full occupancy.

These parks, two in Islamabad and one in Lahore, have demonstrated that a professional environment attracts investments and enables companies to start their operations rapidly.

Leghari also approved a project costing Rs9 million for inviting key decision makers in the foreign markets to visit Pakistan and interact with the public as well as the private sector.

“This will allow us to rectify the misconception about Pakistan and market the positive aspects of the country,” he said.
Source: The News
Date:4/23/2004