Rural areas: 'government trying to provide latest technology, internet facility'

Provincial Minister Syed Ali Mardan Shah has said that present government is trying to provide latest technology and internet facility in rural areas. This he said during inauguration of Information Technology Resource and Rural Community Internet Centre at Patshala School Umerkot here on Tuesday.
Programme was organised by IT department district Umerkot in collaboration with provincial IT Sindh. Ali Mardan Shah said that at this time whole world information is linked in computer and in future we will be depending only on computer, so computer information is necessary for every citizen, he called upon students to come forward and be computer literate. He also urged business community to utilise this facility and connect itself with international market.
Syed Sardar Ali Shah, renowned intellectual and writer said that there is lot of potential among Tharis, but they need a good platform. He added that during Musharraf regime post of EDO IT was created for all the districts, but none of any EDO IT was appointed in his tenure. As PPP came in power, first EDO IT was appointed in this marginalised district Umerkot.
He urged all the departments of the district to cooperate with Information Technology department of the district and make their departments computerised, he said that Sangi's work is good for this generation but will be more fruitful for coming generation too.
He lauded the work of EDO IT Asif Sangi and said that he has developed good programmes in which just in education sector he has made it easy to get information about surplus staff, shortage of staff and infrastructure and other facilities can be viewed in just single click.
Earlier, EDO IT Asif Sangi welcomed the guests and briefed that this centre is comprised of 15 computers where scanning, printing, emailing facilities will be provided at minimum charges and two well trained instructors will be present to provide facilities. Added that motive of establishing of this resource centre is to enhance the IT awareness among the citizens of Umerkot district.
So that critical shortage of IT and computer literate persons in district can be overcome by providing quality services to the general public, students, government employees and other beneficiaries. He recalled that previously IT department Umerkot had arranged training in collaboration of Intel and others for teachers and administrative staff of all the departments, in which more than 400 beneficiaries have become computer literate.
He informed that village directory for disaster management is under process, which will help the government to know the resources and structure of all the villages of district in case of any disaster through maps. Dr Noor Ali Shah and others also spoke on the occasion.