KARACHI, May 16: The need for greater participation of the private sector to promote of information technology was stressed at a seminar here on Thursday.

The seminar was organised by the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology in collaboration with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority in connection with the observance of “World Telecommunication Day-2002”.

The speakers on the occasion highlighted the far-reaching changes taking place in the field of telecommunication worldwide and said that Pakistan would have to adopt extraordinary measures to keep pace.

Inaugurating the seminar, vice-chancellor SSUET, Prof Dr Syed Nazir Ahmed, said research and development departments in every organization were the only way to achieve the desired results.

Director (tariff and interconnect), Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Mohammed Saeed, gave a slide presentation on the occasion.

He termed low computer literacy, high bandwidth cost, low priority to technical education in the past, inconsistent policies, low fund allocation, non-conducive environment to attract investment as factors on the negative part of the digital divide.

He pointed out the India was much ahead of us in the IT sector with software exports totalling 7 billion dollars a year. He said the IT sector in India was expected to create 2.2 million jobs.

In Pakistan, he stressed, the focus on information communication technology (ICT) had become most essential to fuse the missing link as the digital divide meant a lot to developing countries. He said that only government or public organizations could not bridge the digital divide and only liberalization and deragularization would help the sector to promote.

In his speech on the occasion, Mushtaq Bhatti, regional director PTA, said that telecom markets were taking new directions and working as a driving force to developing economies. Digitalization, he said, had expanded the telecom capacity at an amazingly fast rate.

Mr Bhatti said that Internet, World Wide Web, mobile communication and online services were leading to the opening up of new markets and new demands for markets.

In view of that rapid expansion, he said, the government was liberalising and deregulating the telecom services in which the PTCL would lose its monopoly by December 2002. He said the PTCL was now preparing itself to meet the post-monopoly scenario when all operators would be having a level playing field.

The seminar was also addressed by chief engineer PTCL (south), Shamsher Ali Khan. An exhibition of telecom projects by the students of the Sir Syed University was also held on the occasion.—APP