There are two main things that are currently causing out growth in ICT to stall. One is the lack of original ideas, so most of the entrepreneurs either copy what is already around internationally or locally, we still have not hit the jackpot with someone creating something. The second issue always lamented by entrepreneurs is lack of any funding sources in Pakistan.
One of the few funding sources in Pakistan is National ICT R and D Fund which has loads of cash sitting around idle, but not a lot of it being utilized in projects of worth. The process to acquire funding can take more than a couple of years. I personally know a lot of people who applied for funding with brilliant ideas but they faced with red tape process.
If you look at the projects which got funded it shows a number of government funded projects ranging from Rs. 6.14 million to Rs. 31 million without the project complete submission and in fact leading to broken links. One such example is of the project named Agriculture Decision Support System Using Agri Data Warehousing, Data Mining and Web based Online Analytical Processing.
For the details of the project the author gives us the link of a website which is trying to sell its domain. The project is surprisingly got Rs. 31million in funding and neither the author nor the supervisor has put in the little effort of giving the final submission report. I am sure a small amount of the acquired Rs. 30 million could have been used to pay domain registration and hosting fees for the project which would definitely be less than 10,000 rupees per year.
Since 1997, proposals worth of Rs. 2612.33 million were withdrawn and Rs. 1399.33 million have been rejected which is definitely a heavy blow for the economy which is sinking in its debt and highest inflation levels.
In short, the total lack of accountability of governments funded projects in the name of countrys RandD and technological development is clearly evident and is obvious enough not to throw dust in the eyes of the viewers who can easily figure out the level of corruption and deception on this level.
By Saba