With the widespread growth and elongated lockdown restriction in the country, the IT industry in Pakistan has never been of greater importance. As social distancing is expected to grow, tech based companies have now started to promote measures that ensure safe online shopping. Recently, the Federal Secretary Ministry of IT and Telecommunication, Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui, has instructed the Pakistan Software Export Board to ensure collaboration with the IT industry to minimise the impact of COVID-19 on the industry.
Pakistan Software Export Board is an apex Government body mandated to promote Pakistan’s IT Industry in local and international markets. PSEB facilitates the IT industry through a series of projects and programs. The Federal Secretary Ministry of IT and Telecommunication informed the management of PSEB to be in constant communication and coordination with the IT industry to ensure the impact on Coronavirus is reduced. This is done in an effort to ensure Pakistan’s information technology industry gets the maximum support they can during the lockdown phase.
This was done in an official meeting which was attended by senior Ministry officials, Managing Director, Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) and Chairman Pakistan Software Houses Association. The chair of the meeting was informed that these efforts of facilitation would include checking how businesses can continue to function through Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)-call centres, which is a working group created to handle associated issues in a rapid manner. This working group included senior representatives from the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, Pakistan Telecom Authority, Pakistan Software Houses Association and Pakistan Software Export Board.
This group that aims to be formed will work to minimise main issues concerning the BPO-call center industry. This includes tasks such as white listing of call centres and enabling work from home for call centre agents. This can be further taken alongside various other industries to ensure that various smaller companies and freelancers can use this to ensure they gain benefit from this as well. Pakistan Software Export Board has appointed a team that will focus just on this task and can be reached at covid@pseb.org.pk and on Skype ID: cs-noc1@skype.com. PSEB also has set up a Covid help line at 0800 03030 that will be available 24/7 from the industry to ensure maximum effectiveness.