For example, the government acquired 230 acres of lands at Kaliakair near Dhaka in 1999 to set up an information technology (IT) park. This was planned to give this sector a big leap forward in all respects. The park was to be built up with uninterrupted power supply and continuous supply of high speed Internet connectivity round the clock, among other indispensables for such an establishment. Although a decade has passed since the acquisition of land, actual wirk to get the park going has been very little. The immediate past caretaker government allocated the pittance of Taka 60 million for the development of the park. But that was spent in only erecting a boundary wall around the site. No move has been noted since then to put in place the vital infrastructures to bring the so-called IT park into an operational state.
The government itself would require to give a boost to this sector by taking serious initiatives to spread e-governance. Ministries and different organisations ought to be adequately brought under computer networks to preserve information and discharge different services to people. In the process, the use of locally made software and support services would give a stimulus to about 400 companies in the private sector that have sprung up. The net of internal consumption of locally made IT products and services would then go up on the whole encouraging local IT companies. The higher local use of IT products and services of local companies will lead to substantial growth in this sector. This will also help in the creation of addition manpower in this sector. Foreign buyers of IT products would then come round to feeling that the IT sector in Bangladesh is dependable; this confidence could lead to their placing orders in Bangladesh in far greater volumes.
As it is, Bangladesh presently is mostly dependent on one connectivity to the international information superhighway through undersea cable connection. When this connection gets snapped for whatever reasons entrepreneurs in this sector are required to sit idle unproductively. More alternative connections to the information highway, therefore, are needed. There is an effective demand for some 10 to 15 thousand skilled or trained manpower annually in this sector in Bangladesh. But the present output of such skilled personnel from the country's educational institutions is roughly estimated at about five thousand only. This points to the pressing necessity of expanding opportunities for IT-related education and training of a much bigger number of IT specialists. The banks should be more pro-active about financing IT projects. All these issues and more need to be effectively addressed at the earliest to be able to really give a push to realise the vision of digital Bangladesh.
---
Quelle/Source: The Financial Express Bangladesh, 25.02.2010
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
