Dear all,
After a lapse of nine months, Board meeting of ICT R&D Fund held today under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, who also happens to be the Minister Incharge for IT.
The Budget of the fund for the year 2012-13 was also approved and that would allow Fund to release pending payments to the projects. These payments would be cleared in coming days inshallah.
Before this meeting, better sense prevailed at the Ministry of IT (MOIT) by restoring one “suspended” Director from the Board of the Fund. This Director, representing the IT industry, was suspended by MOIT few months back in violation of the rules and regulations and caused serious differences between independent Board directors and MOIT on the way Ministry was trying to exercise its powers. The new Secretary MOIT, Mr. Amir Tariq Zaman Khan proved to be a very positive person and played a key role in bridging the gaps and move the organization forward by getting the Board meeting organized. Mr. Amir Tariq Zaman Khan therefore deserves a lot of applause.
Prime Minister was quite positive on his personal support to the ICT R&D Fund and has kindly approved important projects including extension of the Outreach Scholarship Program to support 500 students per year for Bachelor’s Degrees in ICT disciplines, ICT Grassroots Level Project to provide financial assistance to final year graduate students in their Final Year Projects (FYP), etc. Prime Minister’s views about supporting education in the country were also very positive.
So going forward, let’s hope for the best.
Kind regards….Wahaj
From: pakgrid@yahoogroups.com [mailto:pakgrid@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of UsmanIlyas
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 8:58 PM
To: pakgrid@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [pakgrid] ICT R&D Fund gridlocked again??
Hello Fellow Members,
I was wondering if anyone here is in the same situation as I am with regards to their R&D grant proposal to the National ICT R&D Fund.
We received the official acceptance letter 4+ months ago. We promptly and properly signed and returned the letter, and since then we have heard nothing. It has been more than 4 months now, and we are still awaiting the official contract, something I am told takes only 3 weeks under ordinary circumstances.
Bottomline, we are stuck in limbo. Repeated calls are answered politely. Every time we are given a new reason for the delay and a promise that things will be moving soon, but there is zero progress. Is anyone else's proposal stuck like ours?
Regards,
Usman
=
Muhammad Usman Ilyas, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering
School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (SEECS)
National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST)
Sector: H-12, Islamabad - 44000, Pakistan
Tel: (O) +92-51-90852133
(C) +92-345-3603600
Email: usman.ilyas@seecs.edu.pk
Web: http://seecs.nust.edu.pk/faculty/usman.html
| Reply via web post | Reply to sender | Reply to group | Start a New Topic | Messages in this topic (2) |
No comments:
Post a Comment