Federal Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari Thursday urged the government ministries and departments to use and patronize software solutions prepared by local IT companies.
"I have repeatedly been urging all government ministries and public sector corporations to encourage the local software companies and refrain from setting artificial pre-qualification criteria of excluding the local companies," he said on the occasion of a presentation given to him during his visit to the East Karachi district courts.
The minister was told about the progress on the automation and IT implementation of the district courts. The Ministry of IT has been in contact with the Karachi District East to examine how the concept could be scaled up to a broader implementation in various other Districts.
Awais noted that the local IT industry had the potential to produce top-quality products and it only needed patronage from public and private sector organisations to use these products. "In situations where the complexity of the solutions warrants an international player, then a significant part of the customizations and commissioning should be parceled out to a local company," he stressed.
The minister noted with appreciation the fact that the software solution being used by the district courts was developed indigenously by a local software company. "This amply proves that our software industry has matured and can deliver solutions provided they are given the opportunity," he said.
He also lauded the use of IT as a tool to reduce backlog of cases through a close monitoring of the cases by the session judges. He sad the system being used also enabled the citizens to get direct information through the web portal and lodge complaints if necessary about an FIR not being registered as well as corpus petitions. |
