Govt mulling projects to provide over 20 e-services: Awais
Staff Report

ISLAMABAD—Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari Thursday said his ministry was rking on a series ofprojects to provide wireless broadband services to over 100 major urbancenters to lay the groundwork for provision of e-services to the public.
"We are planning to use resources from the Universal Service Fund to take the wireless broadband internet service to at least 100 towns with up to 0.5 million population as a way to increase awareness about using IT as a tool to improve socio-economic conditions," he said during a meeting with a five-member Intel Corporation delegation led by Intel Corporation Vice President John Davies who called on the president to brief him on Intel's plans and new initiatives for participating in the growth of IT industry in Pakistan.
Awais said his ministry was planning to use the USF aggressively to increase tele-density and broadband penetration by setting up more tele-centers which would also become the hub for provision of all key public services besides being repositories of knowledge and information for the local people.
He said the USF would become operational in about a month and the World Bank had also agreed to provide Pakistan a sum of $125 million to fund any project to increase universal access in the country. He said it were not just the urban areas starving for e-services but the rural areas were also eagerly looking for the delivery of such services.
He said the provision of about 20 public services electronically would involve massive investment and the government would like to outsource the provision and subsequent handling of these services to the private sector to add value to the local industry.
He said his ministry would also invest heavily into the content development in local languages and efforts would be made to use Urdu as a medium of distribution of the public services.
The minister said the computer industry in Pakistan was going from strength to strength and though the imposition of GST had been a stumbling block, the ministry was doing all it could to ensure there was no discouragement to computer manufacturing and user proliferation.
He conceded there was a need to introduce low-cost personal computers to the literate population, especially students and government employees, and his ministry would consider provide incentives for any such initiative.
He said Pakistan being a country of 150 million people, including a growing middle class endowed with better literacy, could be an ideal place for investment for any international company.
Later while addressing a function on the occasion of the launch of 'World Ahead Program' in Pakistan by Intel Corporation, Awais Leghari said e-services and telemedicine were some of the key facilities which could be provided to people at tele-centers.
He welcomed Intel's initiative and hoped other companies would also help in the government efforts to accelerate access to technology and improve opportunities for education, commerce, healthcare and communication for all Pakistanis.
He hoped the Intel's World Ahead Program would provide a foundation for technology usage and ownership besides extending broadband internet access and preparing students for success in today's knowledge-based economy.
He said Pakistan was emerging on the radar screen of IT global market as there was a huge amount of good stuff happening in the It sector in Pakistan. He said Pakistan was an IT-savy country and was increasingly being recognized as a strategic location for big companies to expand their operations.