PESHAWAR: The Science & Technology and Information Technology (ST&IT) Department is likely to become redundant, as the provincial government has excluded the sector from its Comprehensive Development Strategy 2009-2015, sources said.

The sources said the provincial government had evolved a comprehensive strategy to meet the post-militancy challenges and offset the adverse effects of the conflict the province has been facing over the last eight years.

Referring to the Comprehensive Development Strategy (CDS), they said the strategy presented the government’s vision for the future of the province and it was comprehensive in its scope, covering all areas of the government policy.

They quoted policymakers of the government as saying that the CDS takes into account the short-term (2009-2010), the mid-term (2011-2015) and the long-term (2016-2030) development of the public sectors to improve the service delivery and governance.

It defines clear and changing priorities for each of these periods and assesses the costs of the priority programmes involved. It matches the expected costs with funding from domestic and foreign sources. And, finally, it defines 10 core indicators, which will be used to assess the progress of the strategy.

The sources said the government would allocate 83 per cent of total support to the five sectors of education (25 per cent of total), health (20 per cent), local development (19 per cent), roads (10 per cent) and irrigation (9 per cent). But it has no vision for the development and even improvement of the science technology and information technology sector in the province.

The sources went on to add that established by the then Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal government, the Science & Technology and Information Technology Department has to be become redundant as there was no ongoing or new development scheme being initiated by the provincial government in its annual development plan for the current financial year.

The ANP-led provincial government claimed in the strategy that it was determined to address the post-militancy challenges with the participation of the provincial departments and with consultation and advice from key representatives of civil society and the private sector, an official said. But it relates to a different story when it comes to the ST&IT Department, the official said.

He said the Science & Technology wing of the sector had already been hijacked by Academia Industry-Government Roundtable (AIGR), the forum that works in public-private partnership. The NWFP governor is patron-in-chief of the AIGR that has been registered with the Board of Research and Development to promote need-based research and development in the province. However, so far no project has been undertaken even by the AIGR.

Provincial Minister for Science & Technology and Information Technology Muhammad Ayub Khan Ashari when contacted sounded light about the SDC and said that his ministry had initiated a number of projects, some of which had already been completed. He said the computerisation of the provincial assembly and revenue record of Peshawar district had been completed. The computerisation of Provincial Services Commission and Excise Department would also shortly be carried out, he added.

The minister said that proposal for the establishment of a full-fledged IT university in the province had been included in the budget strategic paper and directorate Information Technology was carrying out feasibility of the project. Ayub Ashari hoped that the ANP-led government would meet its science and information technology targets even before the CDS timeline.The news