Netxpress Jan Edition 2004
Upon Salman Ansari’s resignation from the post of Advisor to the Minister of IT and Telecom at the end of 2003, we got in touch with Salman sahab to find out just how much work had been accomplished during his tenure. Here’s a look at the industry with Salman Ansari as our guide!
Salman Ansari’s love-hate relationship with the IT industry and his movements in the corridors of the powers that be began on March 12, 2000. This fateful Sunday afternoon was the day when he got a call from Dr. Atta ur Rahman asking him for advice on whether to accept the President’s offer to take on the reins of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Though sardonic, Mr. Ansari’s response was a testament to what he knew of Dr. Atta ur Rehman’s eccentric habits, making him wonder if the doctor would be up to the task of simultaneously running S&T, IT, and the minefield of a PTCL-driven Telecom sector while he was also running the HEJ Institute of Chemistry and COMSTECH.
Mr. Ansari was of the opinion that if the government was serious, it should enhance the budget exponentially to several billion rupees, instead of the paltry Rs. 100 million, ensure that there was no interference from anyone in the affairs of the ministry, and that the President should support all initiatives, no matter how hard-hitting.
Though tongue-in-cheek, Mr. Ansari advised that if the government was ready to make all these changes, then the doctor should go for it! It came as a surprise to many, and not just Mr. Ansari, when the next thing Dr. Atta announced was that the President had agreed to all his demands and more, and as a consequence, he had agreed to become the Minister.
Not very confident of his own technology-related expertise, Dr. Atta asked for a number of experienced professionals to join his team, which included the likes of Salman Ansari, and so began Mr. Ansari’s fateful albeit fulfilling three years’ labor of love for the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Mr. Ansari became part of an extraordinary team of people of caliber and vision under General Musharraf, with everyone from Shaukat Aziz to Dr. Atta being thorough professionals. All of whom managed to give back something to their country, primarily in terms of a radical and basic transformation in the private sector brought about by thoughtful and professional leadership.
The last three years have taken Pakistan from nowhere to the edge of a major leap into the increasingly technology-driven future, especially in the domain of Information Technology and Telecommunications. There have been many initiatives, some of which have been initiated and concluded by Mr. Salman Ansari. Many of which were ahead of their time but whose results will play out over the next few years.
Contrary to the jaundiced view of Pakistanis being selfish, this team of dedicated and honest professionals has generated a tremendous amount of goodwill and volunteer support. Even the jaded, ever-cynical professionals at home and abroad were enthusiastic in their support as they saw the change take shape in Pakistan, which finally gave them something to cheer about and made them proud to be Pakistanis.
Mr. Ansari himself took the initiative to communicate with Pakistanis from abroad and to get their inputs in areas as diverse as multimedia, chip design, social impact of IT, GIS mapping, genomic research, IT Security, linkages with US Universities, and a wide range of subjects that could benefit Pakistan.
Another successful experiment was the making of TReMU – the Technology Resource Mobilization Unit ((link unavailable)). At its peak, it had Task Forces and working groups covering a very range of activities from Urdu language software development, GIS, Telemedicine, Open Source, Industrial Automation, Secure Networks, Legislation in IT, and the recognition of Women in Technology.
There were almost 20 of these ‘Think Tanks’, led by the best professionals giving their time as volunteers, with their only desire being to have the chance to make a difference.
Unfortunately, Mr. Ansari is not alone in his regret of the fact that bureaucracy did not appreciate these efforts, and three years’ worth of effort were sabotaged.
A huge body of work now lies for some visionary to pick up the threads and use these powerful ideas and work with the excellent people who made it happen. Some results of Mr. Ansari and his teams effort are already visible: the Virtual University, Paksat, the Educational Research Network, the spread of the Internet to over 2000 cities, streamlining of Telecommunications and bringing about of Deregulation in the Telecom sector, Price and tariff reductions and a huge and single minded effort for building of valuable Human Capital in Pakistan. This single mindedness for developing Human resource had been, in part, triggered off by the formation of an effective Higher Education Commission (the HEC) putting in an effective leadership and giving it the top level support. The results are a host of measures being put in place, which one can read in the newspapers everyday. The impact of other initiatives will become evident as time goes by: Open Source Software, Local Language Software, Tele-medicine, IT Enabled Environment for Citizens and the Government and exports based on IT Enabled Services.
The seeding of projects like the digitization of Land Records can radically change the landscape in Pakistan and make people’s life simpler, reduce litigation and invisibly bring about ‘land reforms’. Unfortunately, this initiative languishes (despite some good work by the Punjab government) and money being available.
The effects of their initiatives have had a triggering impact on (amongst others), on-line banking: expanding the number of online branches, induction of ATMs, getting banks to collaborate on linking ATMs to common switches (an initiative of Dr. Ishrat), making the Telecom infrastructure resilient against cyber attacks after being pounded by DDOS attacks which made the PTCL and the people in the government realize that IT was no laughing matter and started to agree to the necessary changes needed to make the Telecom systems more reliable.
The number of people who now use the computer and take the Internet for granted has grown exponentially. A far cry from seven years ago, when Digicom (the pioneer ISP) served 2000 customers with 64 Kb/s of bandwidth!
The pain of making Policies and Laws, steering it through the Bureaucracy and then trying to get consensus, is perhaps the biggest challenge for people who want to do something original and radical in the Government. Ironically, it is predictable (and well known) how the ‘system’ enables a few unrelated people to block, modify or dramatically change useful work.
According to observations made by the think tanks, of which Mr. Ansari is also a member, the root cause of the maligned state of technology in Pakistan is the confusion of the powers that be and the Rules of Business of the Government relating to the Bureaucracy. The lack of decentralization of authority levels and the complete lack of accountability (or feeling of responsibility) of the people, who take decisions on behalf of the citizens of Pakistan, is frightening.
Just one insignificant functionary with an ego to satisfy can cause incomparable loss with the simplest of tools available to him, without actually bearing any real responsibility for his actions. Now couple this with the constant red herring of the NAB threat and perpetual insecurity generated by the ‘Higher Powers’, and one gets the perfect recipe for not taking any decisions that would need initiative, courage, hard work, starting something anew or having to take decisions that would require personal commitment and ownership.
It is perhaps much easier to get on the bandwagon of pillorying those who try to do something that can make fundamental differences to the future of Pakistan. Major examples being the state of affairs of the ministry of which Mr. Ansari was a part and also that being run by Shaukat Aziz, although both have the potential of bringing about profound change in Pakistan’s long term economy!
The dynamics at the much higher level of the Cabinet are more complex and make the critical difference when decisions are taken for the future of Pakistan. The courage, intelligence, honesty of purpose, drive and determination of the few people who sit there are the difference between Pakistan going forward, or stagnating and missing the boat again and again.
Lost in the hype of e-commerce and e-government and many peoples’ perceptions that Pakistan will be merrily doing $1 billion worth of software export annually within a year, has been some solid work, which actually lays the foundation of an IT enabled Pakistan, although a major problem has been the management of expectations. It takes time and effort to set the foundations and then a consistent effort has to be put in place.
As proclaimed by Mr. Ansari many times, if the level of effort and support Pakistan had in the initial two years were to be sustained, Pakistan could be set firmly on the path of exploiting IT enabled markets. The unfortunate battle between PASHA and PSEB effectively killed progress and brought many initiatives dead on their tracks, most of these having their basis in personal vendettas.
This provided enough ammunition to those people in the government who were not interested in IT progressing, to make a mountain out of a mole hill and block all funds and stop all work, just when this was beginning to invigorate the IT sector. Unfortunately, the damage to the sector was immense and the Ministry still struggles to get something started.
Most visionaries, including Salman Ansari, do not have much hope for the future, unless the President decides to step in again and ensure that changes needed are made and persisted until these become irreversible.
Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman’s unflinching drive and the work of his team had managed to lay the core foundations of the infrastructure, laws, institutions and policies. It is now up to the new government to exploit it and finally drive Pakistan into the mainstream IT environment.
Changes across the board and core work – most of which is still in the background – will enable people who follow, if they have the commitment and courage, to bring the changes needed in the public sector and defense services to leverage the developments in IT and Telecom, in order to plan transformations into providing efficient, transparent and modern services for Pakistanis.
An unfortunate testament to the huge opportunity which Pakistan has always had and has squandered time and again, thanks to faulty processes, procedures, systems and lack of commitment by people at key positions in the public and the private sector.
