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Bangladesh Government embarks on ambitious plan to give IT sector a boost
Govt embarks on ambitious plan to give IT sector a boost
United News Bangladesh (UNB), Dhaka
The government yesterday decided to arrange jobs in private
organisations for 500 youths trained in computer from select private
institutions annually and also pay part of their salaries during
internship.
Under the important initiative for giving a boost to the prospective
ICT sector, the government will provide 60 per cent of the salary for
each during an internee period of six months to one year. The
incentive pay from the state coffers would not exceed Tk 4000 per
head per month.
The government will need Tk 2.5 crore to implement the plan aimed
at "standardisation and consolidation of computer training" which,
besides government organisations, is provided by nearly 1500 private
institutions in the country.
Another major decision was taken for participation of the private
entrepreneurs in the government-dominated telecommunications sector.
Authorities have been asked to finalise within two months the
procedure of providing licenses for VOIP (Voice Over Internet
Protocol) facilities to private firms to enable people to talk
through the Internet telephony.
Internet telephony drastically cuts down national and international
telecommunications costs, thus giving business and development
efforts a tremendous thrust.
The decisions were taken in the fourth meeting of the National Task
Force on ICT (Information Communication Technology) at the PM office
with Prime Minister Khaleda Zia presiding.
In yet another major step for the present world's fastest-growing
industry, the government decided to carry out feasibility study for
assembling mobile handsets at the Bangladesh Telephone Shilpa
Sangstha at Tongi.
Mobile phone sets are imported for meeting growing needs for the
latest telecommunications tool spending huge foreign currencies,
which also increase prices for the subscribers.
Yesterday's meeting was informed that a shared business office at the
Silicon Valley in the United States, which opened on the first of
March to facilitate the export of software from Bangladesh, was
functioning smoothly.
It was agreed that the Commerce Ministry would expedite opening of
two more similar offices, one in Virginia of USA and the other in
Munich of Germany, for expansion of the high-tech trade.
Work for establishing a high-tech park at Kaliakoir near the capital
is in progress. The government has already provided 265 acres of land
while the infrastructure will be built by local and foreign ICT
entrepreneurs.
The meeting was informed that government programme had started for
encouraging poor talented students at higher levels of ICT education
by providing scholarships.
Begum Zia, who is chairperson of the top-level Task Force, asked all
concerned to "accelerate the implementation of decisions in the ICT
sector to meet the challenges of the 21st century".
As part of the process of adopting e-governance, yesterday's meeting
also decided to computerise various activities like registration of
cars, power and gas billing, birth and death registration, tendering,
registration of voters and service records in the ministries and
government offices.
The meeting reviewed progress on the decisions taken in previous
meetings of the National Task Force.
Internet facilities have been ensured in all the district towns while
work has started to extend the facilities to 80 upazilas.
The executive committee of the National Task Force monitors and
coordinates the implementation of various decisions and programmes
undertaken by the government in the ICT sector.
Finance Minister M Saifur Rahman, Science and ICT Minister Dr Moyeen
Khan, Telecommunications Minister Barrister Aminul Huq, Commerce
Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, PM's Political Secretaries
Harris Chowdhury and Mosaddek Ali and Principal Secretary Dr Kamal
Siddiqui attended the meeting.
Other Task Force members, including Dr Mohammad Yunus Jamilur Reza
Chowdhury, Chairmen of BTR, Executive Director of Bangladesh Computer
Council, representatives of Bangladesh Computer Samity and heads of
the computer science departments of the Dhaka University and BUET
were also present.
(source: The Independent)
