March 17, 2008	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 8, 1429

KARACHI, March 16: Despite the passage of around nine months, little progress has been made in the Rs8 million Sindh Archive’s project which aims at the launching of a website, digitisation and computerisation of records and books.

Interestingly, those at the helm of affairs had been given two years for the task, they feel that since it took off only in July 2007, there still is enough time left for them to complete the project.

According to the director of the Sindh Archives, Iqbal Nafees Khan, the main objective of the project is to provide the public with an access to the records and books that the department possesses. He said that the task had been divided into two sub-projects, digitisation of the record, and its computerisation.

For this, all the available records and books will be scanned and stored using software developed by experts hired by the department itself. These records will only be accessible to the people or researchers visiting the Sindh Archives, as according to Mr Khan, the archives also contain classified information like record from the commissioner’s office and police reports on different people etc.

When asked about the completion of the project, the official said that the website and the entire project would be launched in 2009. Elaborating further, he said that the under construction website would only serve as a window to interested individuals just to take a glimpse of the data that would be available from the department.

However, he said, the visitors to the website would not be able to read or download anything from the internet but they could benefit from the short descriptions of all the available documents.

It is worth noting that even after the passage of around nine months, the website has not moved beyond page one. When the director showed this writer the work that had been done so far, even the only page ‘completed’ contained a number of errors.

The Sindh Archives official insisted that the delay had been caused due to a shortage of manpower. Mr Khan said that as many as 11 people were required for the development of the website. We have had hired the service of the required manpower but they left as soon as they were offered more lucrative jobs from others, the official said.

He said that a low salary package was one of the major reasons behind the inordinate delays in the development of the website.“When we started the project, we initially hired people on not more than Rs10,000 a month, but when they started leaving for other opportunities, the department changed its strategy by increasing the package to almost double of the initial offer”, the official said.

Mr Khan, however, deplored that the strategy did not work out as only five people were left with the website project that required the expertise of 11 experts.

“The department is still in search of suitable people to work for the website project as content writers and database developers”, he said.

An employee of the department, who wished not to be named, revealed that the development of the website was a matter of hardly two months. Actually, he added, the people working on the project were not capable or rather qualified enough to handle the project.

He also accused the director of the department of hiring incompetent and unqualified people to perform the task resulting in the wastage of both time and funds.

On the other hand, the management complained that the project had been delayed due to the indifferent attitude of the government towards the project.

The software called, Library Management System, developed exclusively for the project and to be used on the premises of Sindh Archives is said to be complete. Yet out of the 30,000 to 40,000 books, only 3,033 have been scanned yet and fed in the software.

When a private website developer was contacted to get a bit of know-how in this regard, she said that usually it took only two to three months for the completion of a fully-fledged website and cost around Rs0.1 million to Rs0.2 million only.

She believes that Rs8m is quite a lot of money for the project and it should not have taken more than a few months. The web developer agrees that there is a shortage of database developers but she argues that if Sindh Archives invests all of the money given by the government for this projects some of the best people in the field may agree to work for them.

Apart from the fact that we as a nation lack interest in books, Sindh Archives has some valuable books and precious records donated both by private parties and various government departments.