Remaining institutions will be linked early next
year:
IT connects 75 percent Government institutions
Sanjeevi JAYASURIYA
Information Technology (IT) will play a major role in the economic
development in Sri Lanka as 75 percent of the Government institutions
including Ministries, Departments, Provincial Councils, Pradeshiya
Sabhas and Divisional Secretaries have been connected to a cohesive
network that enables an efficient service to the public, Chief Operating
Officer Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA)
Reshan Dewapura said at the launch of the e-Asia 2009, Asia’s most
prestigious international exhibition and conference in Colombo
yesterday.
The remaining institutions will be linked early next year and this
will be in accordance with the “Mahinda Chinthana” policy document. Once
this is in place the functions of these institutions will be much faster
and would save the time and the money of the public, he said. The e-Asia
conference is conducted for the fourth consecutive year followed by
conferences in Malaysia, Thailand and India. Over 1,500 delegates both
local and international are expected to participate in this event.
The “Lanka Gate” project that provides the facility to access
Government services through the internet will be available shortly.
“Lanka Gate” is a nationwide middle wave infrastructure.
It is essentially a collection of software which is envisioned to be
the gateway for all information and electronic communication in Sri
Lanka.
“The conference is a great opportunity to share knowledge and learn.
It will be significant to host the conference at a time that Sri Lanka
holds the Chairmanship of SAARC and this year being declared as year of
English and IT. We have come out of 30 years of war and it is an
opportunity to demonstrate that the country has a condusive environment
for investment and promote tourism”, he said.
“Sri Lanka has always been a centre for knowledge. We will be able to
re-create this image and it will also be a platform to promote and share
knowledge. The conference will focus mainly on e-government,
e-education, e- health and tele centres.
The country has over 600 tele centers (Nena Sala),” he said.
The country is making great strides in information technology
literacy as the rate has increased to 30 percent in 2009 from four
percent in 2002. Sri Lanka is poised to become a renowned IT hub as it
has secured the 16th place in business processing outsourcing (BPO), he
said. |