ISLAMABAD ( BMZ REPORT )
MoIT has successfully conducted a final “Stakeholders Consultation” event to review the draft National IT Policy on 27th October, 2016 here at Islamabad today.
It was an interactive session where salient features of this proposed policy document were discussed extensively. Minister of State for IT & Telecom Mrs. Anusha Rehman while chairing the event stated that this policy document won’t deliver desired results until & unless it is not endorsed by the Industry and other stakeholders. She said that in last few years, the world has witnessed a phenomenal growth in our IT Sector due to our appropriate policy measures and strenuous efforts. Therefore, we earned four international recognitions which speak volume of our inclination & determination to bring an IT revolution in the country.
The Minister said that our government gives highest priority to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector, particularly IT exports, e-Governance entrepreneurship and innovation, in order to create an accelerated digitization ecosystem to expand our knowledge based economy. Therefore, we want to bring a comprehensive new IT policy which could ensure creation of a holistic digital ecosystem with other wide-ranging objectives like promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, infrastructure development, increase in IT exports, legislative measures to safeguard software industry, enabling e-Commerce environment, and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) for IT accessibility.
Anusha Rehman while sharing some key initiatives of her Ministry with participants stated that under “ICT for Girls” project we are establishing 150 computer labs in women empowerment centers to enable our marginalized girls to learn latest computer skills of coding and computing. Establishment of first state of the art “IT Park” in Islamabad is in the offing. Loan agreement with Korean Exim Bank will be signed within this year and two more IT parks will be built in Lahore and Karachi very soon. In our e-office replication module, we have trained five thousand government officials through NITB. Our IT export has crossed 2.7 billion and we have targeted to take it up to six billion in next 2 years. She stressed upon the Industry to bring their foreign remittances under specific State Bank’s six digit code so that an accurate picture of our voluminous IT export could be reflected in State Bank’s record too.
The Ministry, in continuation of its efforts of inclusivity & outreach to all relevant stakeholders, further deliberated this draft document in multiple focused group sessions with researchers from prime academic institutions, high ranking IT experts, civil society, experienced government decision makers, digital & Internet service providers as well as other associated stakeholders. The key features of the new National IT Policy document are Sectoral digitization, Big data, data analytics, entrepreneurship, Internet of Things (IoT), e-Commerce, e-agriculture, software export. It is expected that the National IT Policy 2016 will be submitted to ECC within the next 6 weeks for its approval.
The Secretary IT, Chairman PASHA, Chairman PTA, CEOs of IT Industry, Member (IT) other Senior Government Officials, Moderators, Working Group Members and other dignitaries were also present at this auspicious gathering.