KARACHI: Free computer training centre for blind opens
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Jan 13: Speakers at a function on Thursday urged the visually impaired people to come forward and become computer literate so that they could play their due role in the progress of society.
They were speaking at the inauguration of a free computer training and literacy centre, donated by the Ko-ordination Group, at the Nazimabad office of the Pakistan Association of the Blind.
Information Technology Minister Syed Mustafa Kamal, who inaugurated the center, said the government through the public-private partnership plans to establish approximately 800 IT centres, and a majority of them would be set up on rural areas as well as slums in the urban centres, in the next couple of years so that the underprivileged people could benefit.
He said that the programme had been devised a few months back and many philanthropists were called for a meeting. He said at the meeting, a public-private partnership project was prepared and in the past three months, seven such computer centres were made operational.
He said that under this project, computers are being provided by the private sector while the recurring expenses are being incurred by the government. He said that though nearly 70 per cent of the population was in the rural areas, it had been neglected, so it had been decided to give priority to the rural and under-developed areas.
He said a new market, that of call centres, was opening up in the country. He said it was one of the fastest growing markets and a neighbouring country was earning billions of dollars though it. He said that the government also plans to train over 1,000 call centre agents.
He said only deserving poor people, who have studied at the government schools, would be selected for the training that costs around Rs 55,000, so that the call centres could be established here as well.
