PESHAWAR, Jan 4: The federal government has allocated Rs60 million for the establishment of e-government. Separate funds will be provided to the district governments. In addition Rs35 million will be provided by the NWFP government for the purpose as a provincial contribution.

This was revealed at a meeting chaired by NWFP Minister for Finance, Mr Farid Rehman here on Friday.

Additional chief secretary NWFP, SMBR, administrative secretaries of finance, local government, agriculture, work and services departments and advisor science and technology and information technology, also attended the meeting.

It merits mention here that science and technology and information technology cell has already been established at IT Park Hayatabad, headed by an advisor to supervise e-government related projects in the province.

The meeting was informed that PTCL had provided optic fibre bandwidth facility to the park.

Apart from that, very high quality network with computer server and terminals with CISCO routers had been established in the park at a cost of Rs15 million.

Moreover, the meeting was informed that Rs5.7 million had been provided for the procurement of 94 computers along with printers for the district office of education, health, finance and planning departments.

Likewise, seven IT universities had been opened in the province to promote information technology education. The meeting decided to strengthen STIT Cell through providing additional staff.

Provincial finance minister said the NWFP governor was himself taking keen interest in the promotion of IT education in the province.

He directed the administrative secretaries to nominate focal persons in their respective departments who shall coordinate with the advisor of STIT Cell in preparation of PC-1 to ensure best utilization of federal government allocations made for the establishment of e-government in the province.