Report by Engineering Post
The Federal Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication in collaboration with the Pakistan S software Export Board has established as many as 43 Software Technology Parks in different parts of the country.
According to the informational available through official source, in these parks pretty large number of 350 Information Technology (IT) and IT enabled Services (ITeS) were located in total covered area of 1.9 million square feet and ever-growing larger number of 18000 professionals including 20 percent women IT professionals were working.
These facilities were established during the period of 2022 to 2024 and were located in Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Gilgit , Rahim Yar Khan,Faisalabad, Swat, Quetta, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Abbottabad, Mansehra, Gujrat, Jamshoro, Nawabshah, Bahawalpur and Khuzdar.
Meanwhile, the Federal Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication was implementing 16 ongoing schemes in a phased manner at a total estimated cost of Rs 83473.178 million including foreign aid of Rs 38378.884 million which were in different stages of their completion. These mainly included Establishment of Information Technology Park at Karachi in collaboration with Pakistan Software Export Board at an estimated cost of Rs 31199.885 million including foreign aid of Rs 28479.230 million. This scheme was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) in April 2021 and was being executed at a rather slow pace.
The other main scheme, which was also being implemented at a pretty slow pace was Technology Park Development at Islamabad at an estimated cost of Rs 13797.070 million including foreign aid of Rs 11797.834 million. It was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council way back in April 2018 and was being executed by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication itself.
The Ministry was also in the process of launching only five new schemes during the ongoing financial year 2024-25 which may possibly be mentioned on these pages some other time, please.
