Focus should be on producing IT professionals: Minister Sharma

By TRN Online, Kathmandu, Apr. 9: Minister for Communication and Information Technology Rekha Sharma has emphasized on production and management of human resources on information technology.

She said so while referring to lack of IT professionals to operate IT infrastructures in the country. She observed that the country does not lack IT infrastructure.

Receiving the report of the high level task force formed to conduct a comprehensive study of the government unified data center and the services provided by disaster recovery center, Minister Sharma remarked that there were difficulties to bring in competent IT professionals in the government agencies.

"Although we have equipment, we have confronted with the problems of the lack of efficient workforce. Challenges have emerged on how to employ IT professionals in government agencies and on ways to make existing workforce competent. We need to do homework with priority on this," said Minister Sharma.

She stressed on regular training to IT workforce to update them with the latest technology, according to the secretariat of the Minister.

The minister said that cyber security programmes will be implemented in all government agencies while acknowledging that the country was not strong enough in this aspect.

She thanked the task force for presenting the report before the deadline and assured that the suggestions put forth will be adopted in the forthcoming policy and programme of the government.

Secretary of the Ministry, Krishna Bahadur Raut, pointed out the need of structural changes to enhance cyber security and service delivery and assured of putting the report's suggestion into practice in a planned manner.

He said cyber security was vital as service delivery has been growing based on electronics.

Juddha Bahadur Gurung, coordinator of the task force, said that the reported included suggestions for short and long run.