ISLAMABAD: The working groups on ‘Vision 2025’ and the five-year plan (2013-18) have suggested establishment of national broadband infrastructure.

In its recommendations on information and communications technology (ICT) the working groups have also proposed setting up of mega projects related to e-solutions for health and education, and establishment of national tele-centres and national spatial database.

The working groups, led by Salim Ghauri, Chairman, Netsol Technologies and Dr Syed Muhammad Hassan Zaidi, Dean of National University of Science and Technology (NUST), submitted their recommendations to Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal here on Tuesday.

Representatives from ICT industry, universities and government sector also attended the meeting.

Chairing the meeting, Ahsan Iqbal said that ICT working groups should focus on e-Government, e-commerce and e-services, including education, health and enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR). He also suggested formation of recommendations for establishing revolving fund for e-governance.

Recommendations also included creation of five to six highly-connected cities and building common digital services platform. It was proposed that university-centric clusters may be established to improve the overall quality of academic institutions as well as the intake of students.

The working groups presented five pillars of national ICT strategy which included infrastructure, legislation, governance, social capital and environment.

The group also made recommendation for e-commerce legislation, appointing government chief information officer and development of government ICT procurement standards. The recommendations also included strategically-placed knowledge hubs for world class research and development, creation of a strong TVET environment leading to world class certifications and creation of high quality resource base in ‘emerging skills’.