IT Is IT
FOR all the rhetoric on the need to promote informational technology, Nepal lags for
behind compared to other countries in the South Asian region. The governments in the past
have time and again stressed on the indispensability of developing information technology
for the crucial inputs it can provide to development. In this age and time, no nation can
be expected to move forward much on the path of development unless informational
technology is embraced at least to a reasonable level. Nepal’s IT industry, to be
sure, has moved much over the last decade, owing primarily to private entrepreneurship and
a growing number of IT professionals. The private sector was quick to capitalise on the
international IT boom and began to adopt information technology more and more. However,
for IT to really grow in any country, the state too has to invest as far as its resources
permit. Here, many IT professionals have lamented that the state has not done enough to
create such conditions. They hold that the government has to go beyond lip-service in
actively promoting IT. In response to such demands and out of the realisation that IT
development needed a focused approach, the government did come out with IT Policy 2000 two
years ago. One of the chief highlights of that policy was construction of an IT park.
Although it began two years ago, the IT park construction is
still under way in Banepa municipality of Kavrepalanchok. A news report in this daily
quotes the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) officials as saying the construction
will be completed by next year. Though the delay in construction has cost much time, it
should still be good news that Nepal will have its first IT park by next year. When it is
completed and begins to function smoothly, the IT park can be expected to be a shot in the
arm for the country’s IT industry, because of the facilities it will provide to
entrepreneruships who for lack of such a comprehensive support system have been pretty
much left on their own so far. According to the news report, in the first phase, the IT
park will have the most sophisticated telecommunication tower, connection of local
telephone within the Kathmandu Valley and installation of optical fibre in the Banepa
Municipality. The 190-million-rupee IT park will provide all the facilities related to IT
to entrepreneurs who can run their business across the country. Though the test of the IT
park will naturally lie in what kind of help it will give to such entrepreneurs smoothly,
the immediately priority for the government in this connection should be complete the park
as soon as possible, well recognising that IT is when it comes to provide some essential
inputs to the country’s economic and social development.
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