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South Asia Analysis Group |
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PAKISTAN: The Islamic IT capability by B.Raman
Under the title " Join the Battle for Pakistan in Cyberspace", an announcement in the beginning of September, 2000, in a Pakistani web site by some Pakistani IT training institutions said: "Muslims of the sub-continent did not participate in the industrial revolution. The result has been centuries of subjugation, economic deprivation and defeats. If we miss the digital and information revolution, the consequences are hard to imagine. In the past, only the Western powers had the technological edge over us, this time our neighbor has also made tremendous strides in this area. If we are not careful, our very survival is at stake. Facing this grave situation, "Operation Badar" has been launched with an objective of providing very high quality Electronic-Commerce Web Application Development education at very low cost to the students and professionals all over the country. The target is to train 313 architects and 10,000 developers by December 2001. The organizers of Operation Badar have no financial interest in the program; the nominal fee charged to students will be used to cover the cost of utilities, facilities, teaching, etc. The quality of education provided will be at least at par with the world's leading institutions of higher learning. The cost of training will be less than Rs. 1,000 per month. Scholarships will also be awarded on need/merit basis." Independently of such private initiatives and without talking of an Islamic IT capability, the Musharraf regime has embarked upon an ambitious plan for the development of science and technology in general and the IT in particular. The National Commission for Science & Technology (NCST), which had not met since 1989 when Mrs. Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister in her first tenure, was convened for a special meeting on May 2, 2000 under the chairmanship of Gen. Musharraf to approve in principle a contribution of Rs. 15.7 billion to a newly set-up National Scientific and Technological Research and Development (STR&D) Fund during the fiscal year 2000-2001 to implement the programmes approved by the NCST. All research and development (R&D) projects emanating from the Universities and R&D institutions are to be funded out of this amount. The Ministry of Science & Technology (MST), created by Gen. Musharraf and headed by Professor Atta-ur-Rahman, the Minister-in-charge, would administer the Fund. In 1999-2000, the annual expenditure on S & T amounted to Rs.1.5 billion. Gen. Musharraf has increased this ten-fold. The Commission also approved an expenditure of Rs. 5.0 billion for the IT & Telecommunications Sector in the Public Sector Development Programme during 2000-2001. Out of this, Rs. 2.0 billion have already been allocated and the balance is to be made available later in the year by re-appropriation of funds meant for other purposes. IT development in Pakistan is controlled by the Information Technology Commission (ITC) of the Ministry of Science & Technology (MST), of which the Chairman is Syed Mazhar Ali, former Senator. With effect from March 19,2000, the administrative and financial control of the IT Commission lies with the newly formed IT and Telecommunications Division in the MST. In 1997, there were about 700 companies dealing in information technology products and services in Pakistan. While the quality of the software expertise available in some of these companies was rated above average, the export performance of the industry as a whole was poor rising from annual exports of US $ 10 million in 1995 to US $ 20 million in 1999, as against exports worth US $ 400 million by the textile industry. Amongst the reasons for the poor performance of the industry were inadequate (quantity and quality wise) trained personnel; lack of networking between computer educational institutions and the IT industry; a large number of mediocre or below mediocre institutions with very few new institutes of excellence barring the Hamdard Institute of Information Technology, the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Technology and the Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Technology's Institute of Computer Science (FAST-ICS); non-availability of international technical standards, models and printed information; lack of foreign exchange to import books; scarcity of components and development tools; poor telephone infrastructure in which the Pakistan Telecommunications Corporation (PTC) had monopoly rights; poor management in IT companies; the languishing state of the economy as a whole with strategies for sheer survival rather than growth influencing policies and practices; the resulting lack of financial and technical stability; the uncritical fascination of the political leadership, the bureaucracy, including the armed forces, and the public for Western, Japanese and South Korean products and services resulting in lack of encouragement for domestic entrepreneurs; lack of support from financial institutions for IT companies; lack of a governmental IT policy framework; unstable market conditions; and widespread software piracy with little enforcement of intellectual property rights. In fact, religious organisations encourage piracy as yet another weapon in their jehad against the US. Moreover, there were too many IT departments and agencies created by the Government without an apex body having coordinating and controlling powers. After the approval of the creation of the IT and Telecom Division, the Government has ordered that this Division would be the only governmental agency to guide the IT industry and perform regulatory functions. The Division will have Civil Servants as well as IT professionals who will be hired at market salaries to head different wings dealing with subjects such as Human Resource Development, IT Development, Telecommunications, E-Commerce and Legislation. A four-year (1999-2003) policy initiative for IT development, envisaging a total investment of Rs.22 billion, was unveiled by the military regime on August 22,2000. It projects, inter alia, the following targets. * Increase of the total value of software exports from US $ 20 million in 1999 to US $ 400 million in 2003 as indicated below:
Manpower Supply (1998-2001)
Practically all the diploma/certificate holders and a large percentage of the computer science graduates (BCS) and post-graduates (MCS) are well-versed only in the application of IT for clerical tasks. They are not up to the mark of being graded as IT professionals capable of working as programmers, architects and project managers. The policy initiative aims at increasing the total of not only computer-skilled students passing out of educational institutions, but also of better quality computer science students, capable of working as IT professionals. Targets for 2003 include an annual production of about 2,000 quality MCS post-graduates, 20,000 quality BCS graduates and 30,000 diploma/ certificate holders (through short courses). Assuming that the Pakistani authorities are able to have the policy implemented without any major slippage, the IT industry would still lag far behind that of India. Its projected software exports of US $ 400 million by 2003 would be less than one-fourth of India's, but it would equal, if not replace, cotton-based textiles as the largest foreign exchange earner and could help in achieving the long elusive goal of diversifying its economy. It would also have at its disposal a large reservoir of IT professionals. Gen.Musharraf has two faces--one projects him as a hardliner vis-à-vis India, as soft towards the religious organisations and as a supporter of their jehad against India in Kashmir, while the other projects him as a moderniser wanting to give greater priority to the long-neglected task of improving the education system and the development of indigenous capability in science & technology in general and in IT in particular. While his first face has been receiving adequate attention from Indian analysts and policy-makers, his second has been largely ignored. What would be its long-term implications for India's national security and national economy? This question has been hardly addressed. (8-11-00) (The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and presently, Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: corde@vsnl.com)
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