Just finished reading this story about how planners in India have proposed to spend half a billion dollars on computerizing the government in that country and creating a “national citizen database”. Considering the size of the country, even $500 million seems inadequate.
Anyway, Pakistan on the other hand has already completed it’s computerized citizens database, which is a big achievement since most people question the whole “IT situation in Pakistan” anyway. The project is being managed by the National Database & Registration Authority NADRA], which is also working on computerized ID cards, electoral rolls and even a pilot Motor Vehicle registraion program for Islamabad among other projects. It’s database can currently hold about 4.2 TB of data, but is scalable upto 100 TB. And yes, we were able to do ALL this because we have just about an eighth of India’s population… but what about the 1:10 ratio FOREX reserves?
So anyway, we aren’t just good at building nukes and missiles or sectarian violence, we can beat “others” at other stuff too. Heck, even my Lahore Municipal Corp. birth certificate was a computer issued. Damn, we’re getting there…
