KARACHI, April 5: As many as five task forces have been set up in the light of the suggestions from the information technology experts at a meeting convened by the Sindh Minister for Information Technology, Syed Mustafa Kamal.

The meeting held here on Saturday at Committee Room of the New Sindh Secretariat was attended by the IT experts from the private sector, bankers, industrialists etc, it was stated on Monday.

The task forces would work towards the projects of E-government, promotion of IT in Sindh, IT education, collection of data pertaining to IT and the setting up of the call centres.

The minister told the participants of the meeting that the IT revolution has cast a positive impact on our society. He was of the view that declaring the basic education of IT as compulsory at the school level would produce better results.

Mustafa Kamal opined that this would also contribute towards bridging the digital gap between the rich and poor countries. He pointed out that the government of Sindh was doing its best to help promote IT and would extend every sort of assistance in the efforts to this very end as well.

The minister was of the view that the cooperation of the private sector was also required to supplement such measures as this would help students, government organizations as well as common man acquire computer education and services.

He also assured that the provincial government would extend full assistance to the private sector. The IT experts attending the meeting came up with a number of suggestions. IT Head of the Standard Chartered Bank, Arif Siddiqui, suggested that an institute be set up for imparting training for the call centres.

Regional Manager of NCR, Syed Badarul Islam, was of the view that a comprehensive planning be undertaken for the promotion of IT. The participants of the meeting were of the opinion that if the government takes the private sector along in the IT sector, rapid advancement can be attained in this very field. -APP