Final approval to these projects would be granted by departmental development working party (DDWP) of the ministry to be chaired by IT Secretary Khalid Saeed.
During the ministerial review, the minister recommended setting up of two computer laboratories at the Staff Training Institute (STI) of the Establishment Department of NWFP province. The meeting was told that STI of the Government of NWFP is the only training institute in the province for providing training to in-service government employees in office procedures and management skills, particularly to the ministerial staff and low level officers.
The STI was established in 1996-97 and since its establishment it has trained 4,549 public servants, including 806 officials who have been imparted basic computer training.
Giving his conceptual approval to the project, Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari emphasized that the backbone of a successful e-government program is the cultural change which hinges on the development and training of the government servants. “The government servants should make full use of IT in their day-to-day activities,” he said adding “for this reason it is imperative that the training academies include a component of IT so that the government servants can be proficient in the use of computer and use IT in their core functions”.
It may be noted that the Ministry of Information Technology has already set up computer labs and IT training program in the 11 civil services academies as well as in the Staff College and National Defence College. Separate projects for setting up similar facilities in the three national institutes of public administration are also expected to be completed this year.
The minister also cleared in concept a project for strengthening the IT Department of the Balochistan government. Under the project, the IT ministry would provide modern IT equipment to the department in carrying out its functions more efficiently. The department provides a large number of public services besides playing a pivotal role in implementing projects at the grassroots level and streamline public services with the use of IT.
Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari also recommended setting up of the Balochistan e-government network to link up government offices in the Civil Secretariat. He also stressed the need for setting up a data center for the provincial government so that maximum benefit can be derived from the networking. The data center will provide a platform to deploy several applications for improving the efficiency of the departments and enabling them to communicate through secure electronic mail and share information.
The setting up of this facility will allow the government servants to share information, which currently takes days, to be available instantaneously, increasing the efficiency of the departments manifold. This will result in better services to the citizens.
The minister also recommended a project to automate Balochistan Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education. The automation of the board will improve the functioning of the board and facilitate better record keeping. The minister stressed that the automation be done on the same lines as in other boards in the country so that the students from Balochistan can also avail of state-of-the-art facilities enjoyed by the students in more developed cities.
The meeting also gave conceptual approval to setting up of a web portal of the government of Balochistan. The minister strongly supported the project and directed the staff in the Federal Ministry of IT to work closely with the government of Balochistan in developing what he called a world-class web portal based on open inter operable standards on which the federal government web portal was developed.
With the popularity of the internet, large organizations, may it be corporations or governments, have their presence on the worldwide web. The federal government web portal has been available now for over a year.
Quelle: PakTribune, 18.04.2004
