MoIT Holds Event for Consultation on National IT Policy

MoIT has successfully conducted a final “Stakeholders Consultation” event to review the draft National IT Policy on 27th October, 2016 in Islamabad.

It was an interactive session where salient features of this proposed policy document were discussed extensively.

The Secretary IT, Chairman PASHA, MD PSEB, 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.

Minister of State for IT & Telecom Mrs. Anusha Rehman, while chairing the event stated that this policy document won’t deliver desired results until and unless it is endorsed by the Industry and other stakeholders.

She said that, ”In the last few years, we have witnessed a phenomenal growth in our IT Sector due to our appropriate policy measures and strenuous efforts. Therefore, we earned four international recognition awards which speak for our inclination and determination to bring an IT revolution in the country.”

The Minister said that the 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, it wants to bring a comprehensive new IT policy which could ensure the 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 they were establishing 150 computer labs in women empowerment centers to enable marginalized girls to learn the latest computer skills of programming 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 an e-office replication module, more than five thousand government officials have been trained through NITB. IT exports have crossed 2.7 billion and they have targeted to take it up to six billion in the next 2 years. She stressed upon the Industry to bring their foreign remittances under State Bank’s six digit code so that an accurate picture IT exports could be reflected in State Bank’s record too.

The Ministry, further deliberated this draft document in multiple focus 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 Big data, data analytics, entrepreneurship, Internet of Things (IoT), e-Commerce, e-agriculture and software exports. It is expected that the National IT Policy 2016 will be submitted to ECC within the next 6 weeks for 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.