LAHORE, Jan 17: Islamabad has allocated Rs2 billion for the computerization of the federal and provincial governments in order to build a home market for the local software companies.

The government has already sped up its IT development projects to involve Pakistan’s local software developing companies in them without being unfair to the foreign firms, Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) chairman Hamayun Mian told Dawn here on Thursday.

He said the PITB has already been working on a project to “develop a framework of software development standards through the collective inputs of the best development resources available in the country.”

The framework, likely to be unveiled on Saturday, will contain a set of procedures to be followed, and also a set of rules to be obeyed for “outsourcing” the software development projects in the public sector. The framework is being developed under a directive of President Gen Pervez Musharraf to “undertake IT development in the public sector through the local firms without being unfair to the multinationals.”

The new framework will not only give the government “value for its money” but also improve the “standards of the local companies to the international level.”

He says the IT development in the government is “being given a push to steer the local companies out of the present crisis.” The government of Punjab will be first to implement the new framework in February-March. It will then be followed by Islamabad at the federal level. Other three provinces will also implement the same set of procedure and rules for awarding IT projects.

Mr Mian says Rs1 billion has already been made available by the federal government for implementing the IT projects during June-October 2002. A portion of this amount would be given to the provinces as special grants for undertaking IT projects. Besides, the provinces have also allotted funds for IT projects from their own resources.

Pakistan’s software industry is in a crisis since Sept 11 due to a number of factors, says Mr Mian. They have not been getting much work from the world’s largest software market — the US — and their export earnings would fall substantially. Many software developers are stated to have abolished scores of jobs because of lack of orders from abroad as a consequence of the situation that is obtaining in the region since the US terror attacks.

Pakistan’s software exports are said to have declined to about $65-70 million in the last fiscal from around $120 million during the previous year. The software earnings from the overseas orders in the present financial year are expected to remain between $30-65 million.

Unless home market is built for the local software developers, they would have little chance to enhance their foreign earnings, Mr Mian says. The development of the local market will also help them get orders from foreign companies, he adds.