World's
largest IT call center in Lahore soon
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.
