ISLAMABAD: Minister for Science and Technology Dr Atta-ur-Rehman has said Pakistan has world class information infrastructure with 100 per cent fibre backbone from Peshawar to Karachi. As far as the universal Internet access is concerned, in August last year the facility was available in 29 cities only, but now it is available in 415 cities and villages, the minister, who is presently visiting Britain, told BBC.
He said the world's largest IT call centre is being established in Lahore at an area of 1,700 acres of land. This centre will provide jobs to 10,000 youths in the beginning while this number will increase to 100,000 later on, he said. Atta said seven IT universities are being established in Pakistan out of which five will operate in the public sector. Furthermore, the computer science department in each university has been given a grant of Rs 40 million for the promotion and improvement of IT education, he said.
He said projects to impart training to women have also been launched all over the country. Atta said the Pakistan State Oil is going to set up 1,800 Internet kiosks at its petrol stations to provide the facility to the far-flung areas of the country. Presiding over IT Action Plan review meeting in Islamabad, Atta said during this year the government will focus on imparting IT education to common man on subsidised rates and to achieve this objective public sector universities with low fee structure are being established.
The meeting decided to take immediate steps to convert Petroman into a university. All necessary changes like induction of qualified faculty will be made before giving Petroman the status of a university. The minister instructed the concerned officials to focus on three things -- induction of highly qualified and dedicated faculty members, linkages with some foreign universities and foreign training of faculty.
The minister was informed that the Abbottabad IT University will start functioning from September 1. The minister, expressing serious concern over the proposed fee structure, instructed the COMSATS to lower the fee at the Abbottabad Campus. The whole rationale of establishing IT universities in public sector will fail with this fee structure, said the minister. The minister expressed dissatisfaction over the slow pace of developments taking place in e-commerce sector. He gave instructions to expedite the process.
this is good news infact, because more lamers will now be opting for the call centre thing leaving other it jobs like software development etc to to the true passionate people,
matsui and aalsi: yeah bhai jaans india rocks (more then pakistan) now please take a deep breath and relax.
whateva.. this is a good news cos more and more people will be employed.. this means less fodder for jihadi elements... anyways, lets hope this is the start of a golden period for pakistan
this is not india bashing thread, let us do what ever we want to do, its not costing India anything. everything has to start from little India hasnt become IT hub in a single day. so just relax.
