NATIONAL 4 - (Spotlight Weekly)

— Dinesh Chapagain,

DINESH CHAPAGAIN, Chairman of MISSION, a non-profit organization dedicated for promotion of information-technology-based management system in Nepal, is a well-known consultant. A labor relations expert and pioneer in introducing quality based education in Nepal, he replied to a set of questions by Spotlight on IT scenario in Nepal. Excerpts of the interview:

Why is that both the government and private sector in Nepal seem reluctant to tap vast potential being offered by the IT?

Any government is a cross section, or matrix of the politicians and the bureaucrats, where the vertical and horizontal lines meet to form various cells. In our country, all these cells are gray and void. In Nepal, at first glance, all sectors whether economic or social looks feasible and important. And so, everybody in the government talks about the sector in a loud voice with beautiful slogans, without even really understanding and prioritizing it. Same thing happened to the IT sector as well. We consider this as a well-known phenomenon and we should not be surprised by it. There might be at least two reasons for showing reluctance by the government in not tapping IT potential.

First is the character of the people working in the government, which have been carried over since aeons. The character of providing lip services to all sectors regardless of its importance. Providing lip services is one of the most dangerous attitudes. This attitude delays the decision making and execution. The government formed a high-level task force under the chairmanship of the vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission to prepare the white paper on Information Technology more than a year back. Nothing specific has come out yet. The case of the IT Policy is a very good example of the lip-service culture.

Second is confused working status among the government authorities, most of the times. Take the case of the proposed IT Park. The government decided to establish the IT park, six years ago. But nothing has been done yet, except acquiring some land in Dhulikhel. For the fast changing technology like IT, this delay has already created vast damages. The development of V-SAT and Direct PC has confused the government to realize the need of IT Park . The case of IT Park is a good example of confused working status of the government.

Why is the private sector, except IT professionals, too reluctant to tap vast potentials being offered by the IT?

The private sectors are also reluctant to explore the IT potentials, in real sense. Again, this may be due to two other reasons. First, is a cultural deficiency of entrepreneurship among most of the business houses in Nepal. All businessmen want quick return on their investment. Buy something and sell it immediately for whatever return it gets, is the motto here. This vendor attitude instead of entrepreneurship attitude of Nepalese private sector has eroded the capability of tapping the potentials of IT. IT professionals turned into hardware and/or software vendors. One visit to the annual Info-tech mela clearly reveals this phenomena.

Second, is the Baniyaism method of winning the business game. Which is reducing the quality, identifying the loopholes in the government regulation, and cheating the customers to get easy profit. This method does not work in the area of IT. The business game of IT is an international one, played in a global village. It demands quality, commitment and consistency.

How could Nepal benefit from IT especially in the sector of management and training?

The synonymous of management is decision-making. And, decision-making needs quality information. One need not stress the obvious importance of information for managerial decision-making. IT tools help to collect, analyze, store and transmit the quality information much more efficiently, effectively and accurately for managerial use. As some one has rightly said "In Nepal, we are land locked but not brain locked". It is now time to prove that a land locked country as Nepal can really benefit from IT by grabbing the vast potentials offered by it.

What can and should be done immediately to promote this sector?

(It's) very simple. The government has to show sincere commitment as well as involvement for the development of IT sector without creating confusion on its capability, i.e., only if the government feels that it is a prioritized economic sector. We do not need lip service from the lawmaking politicians and government bureaucrats. The government should re-engineer their thinking process. Prioritize and execute immediately with will power that is what the IT sector needs from the government. Then, within the conducive regulatory and structural environment for IT, the private sector should come forward to play a fair game on a leveled ground with a win-win strategy for the overall development of this land locked country.