Sindh Government has moved ahead with its plan to establish an autonomous provincial Informational Technology Board; involving relevant IT experts from the private sector.
Two special sub-committees of Sindh IT Advisory Committee conducted their maiden meeting in this regard.
The sub-committees on Legal & Administrative issues and Technical & Policymaking matters conducted the meeting as directed by Sindh Information Science and Technology Minister Nawabzada Muhammad Taimur Talpur.
The meetings were chaired by Sindh Secretary for Information Science and Technology Ali Bahadur Qazi.
The meeting of the legal and administrative sub-committee took into consideration various issues related to the formation of Sindh IT Board.
Members put forward the suggestion of including IT experts from the private sector and universities in the proposed board of the province.
The meeting decided that a managing director and his subordinate staff would be appointed to run the affairs of the IT Board.
The subcommittee would propose its recommendations regarding the formation of the IT Board to the advisory committee for finalisation.
The forthcoming meeting of the Sindh IT Advisory Committee would be chaired by the provincial IT minister.
It was discussed that the basic objective behind the formation of the provincial IT Board was the provision of maximum facilities and incentives to the local IT industry and to propose concrete policies for the future growth of the IT sector.
Sindh IT secretary informed the meeting that it was the wish of Sindh IT Minister to have the proposed board include highly qualified and experienced experts of the field as their appointment would be carried out purely on merit without any influence or recommendation.
He said that all government departments had to extensively rely on IT to promote the cause of e-governance.
The provincial IT secretary said on the occasion that developed countries had even started relying on IT to modernise their agriculture sector and increase their agro produce. Quoting the US, he noted that everyone knew how it had modernized its cultivation techniques through IT; enabling it to export wheat and its other agricultural produce to several countries.
Sindh IT Director General Muhammad Yousuf believed that the proposed IT board in Sindh would be established on most meritorious grounds in order to set the example and precedence for the rest of the country.
Sindh would make phenomenal progress in the field of IT with the help of renowned experts, who would be inducted into the proposed board, he maintained.
He said that the Sindh government had planned to establish an IT Park and IT City near Karachi, for which land had been reserved. Yousaf claimed that construction would immediately begin once the infrastructure for the new Education City was completed.
He added that terms of reference and criteria were also being finalised to appoint MD and other subordinate administrative staff of the proposed IT Board.
Different IT experts were also present in the meetings. They talked about the progress made in different countries to promote the concept of e-governance while suggesting various methods to further translate these international IT models in the case of Sindh government.
Both Sindh IT Secretary and DG of the provincial IT Department appreciated the IT experts and also reiterated complete support of the Sindh government to materialise their plans and suggestions for e-governance.
Others who attended the meeting included IT experts Syed Azhar Rizvi, Farzana Shaheen, Khalid Jameel Shamsi, Humayun Qureshi, Muhammad Younus, Niaz Ahmed Laghari, Munawwar Sattar, Rana Asif Mahmood, Nadeem A Malik.