Report on
Survey of IT Resources of Bangladesh and Identification of Y2K Problem Areas
September, 1998
Bangladesh Computer Council (Ministry of Science and Technology)
and
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (Ministry of Planning)
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh
Courtesy of: Global Amitech
Table of Contents
List of Figures
- 01 Yearly Growth Rate of IT Organisations
- 02 Number of IT People Working in Different Sectors
- 03 Number of Hardware and Software in Use in Different Sectors
- 04 Statistics IT Organisations According to IT Involvement
- 05 Statistics of IT Hardware/Licensed Software/Internet Services Marketed Up to 1998
- 06 Earning by Software and Data Entry Services During 1997-1998
- 07 Number of Students Completed Formal/Non-formal IT Education During 1997-1998
- 08 Number of Teachers/Trainers Imparting IT Education
- 09 Division-wise Statistics of Surveyed IT Organisations According to IT Involvement
- 10 Division-wise Statistics of Organisations According to IT Activities
- 11 Resources in Use in Different IT Activities
- 12 Y2K Awareness Status of Different IT Organisations
- 13 Number of Organisations Taking Steps to Solve Y2K
- 14 Number of Organisations Having Y2K Co-ordinators
- 15 Number of Organisations Made Assessment for Y2K Solutions
- 16 Number of Organisations Certain About Smooth Rollover to Year 2000
List of Tables
- 01 Yearly Growth of IT Business Organisations
- 02 Statistics of IT Professionals and People in Different Sectors
- 03 Statistics of Computer Hardware/Software in Use in Different Sectors
- 04 IT Utilisation Statistics of Surveyed Organisations
- 05 Statistics of Computer Hardware/Licensed Software Marketed Up to 1998
- 06 Earning by Software and Data Entry Services During 1997-1998
- 07 Statistics of Students Completed Formal/Non-formal IT Education During 1997-98
- 08 Statistics of IT Teachers/Trainers Imparting IT Education Training
- 09 Division-wise Statistics of Surveyed IT Organisations According to IT Involvement
- 10 Division Wise Statistics of IT Activities of Surveyed Organisations
- 11 IT Resources Being Used for Different IT Activities
- 12 District-wise Distribution of IT Organisation/Users
- 13 District-wise Distribution of IT Professionals and People
- 14 District-wise Distribution of IT Organisations According to Work Area
- 15 District-wise Distribution of IT Organisations According to Activity Type
- 16 District-wise Distribution of IT Resources
- 17 Y2K Awareness Status of Organisations
- 18 Organisations Taking Steps to Address Y2K Issue
- 19 Organisations Having Y2K Co-ordinators
- 20 Organisations Made Assessment for Y2K Solutions
- 21 Organisations Certain About Smooth Rollover to Year 2000
FOREWORD
The Bangladesh Computer Council, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Statistics Division, the Ministry of Planning have jointly conducted the survey entitled, "Survey of IT Resources of Bangladesh and Identification of Y2K Problem Areas". The main objectives of this survey are to make a total inventory of the IT (Information Technology) resources of Bangladesh and to identify the Y2K problem areas and to assess the status of Y2K preparedness of Bangladesh at the time of conduction of the survey. The Y2K problem has caused much concern world wide about its possible adverse effects on the national economies. The survey will enable us to assess the impact of Y2K in Bangladesh and to formulate steps to minimise it. This nation wide survey will also enable the economists and planners of the country to monitor trends in the growth of IT and to formulate action plans for the rapid development of the IT sector.
The report is prepared by the officers and the staff members of the survey project, led jointly by Prof. Dr. Md. Abdus Sobhan, Executive Director of BCC and the Project Director and Deputy Director of BCC, Mr. Serajul Haque. I thank them all. I take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude and thanks to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics for their support in processing the survey data for preparing the report. I hope that the report will be useful to the planners, researchers and policy makers to prescribe policy guidelines for the rapid development and growth of the IT and such other relevant sectors of the country as well.
I shall appreciate any suggestion and comments for further improvement of the report.
(M. Fazlur Rahman)
Secretary
April, 1999 Ministry of Science & Technology
Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is our great pleasure to thank all the team members of the project and all those who participated for the successful completion of the project. The untiring efforts of Mr. Hanif Bin Azhar, Project Manager, Mr Tauhid Mazedur Rahman and Mr Kabir Md. Mahbubul Hasan, Project Co-ordinators and the Survey Executives made it possible to successfully complete the project. The valuable assistance and advice given by the project advisers, Prof. Dr. Md. Lutfar Rahman, Department of Computer Science, Dhaka University, was of immense help for the formulation of the questionnaire form of the present survey. Assistance of Mr. Md. Abdur Rashid Sikder, Director, Data Processing Wing, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) was of great help for processing of raw survey data and preparation of the final report. The assistance provided by Mr. Zulfikar Ahmed, Statistical Officer of the Data Processing Wing of BBS is also deeply acknowledged. We express our sincere thanks to Md. Mizanur Rahman, Senior Programmer and Sheik Zakir Hossain, Data Entry Control Supervisor of BCC for their assistance in the preparation of the graphs and figures and final correction of the manuscript. The project would not have been realised without the logistic support and financial assistance and co-operation extended by Mr M. Fazlur Rahman, Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology. Finally, we wish to thank all those organisations who provided us with valuable data through filling up the questionnaire forms.
(Dr. Md. Abdus Sobhan), Project Director, Executive Director
Bangladesh Computer Council
and
(Serajul Haque), Deputy Director
Bangladesh Computer Council, May, 1999
Executive Summary
Under a special grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the survey project entitled, ‘Survey of IT Resources of Bangladesh and Identification Y2K Problem Areas’ was conducted by the Bangladesh Computer Council jointly with the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics in July-September, 1998. The survey was conducted on the Government, Semi-government, Autonomous and Private Sector Organisations involved in the use, application and development of IT(Information Technology). A total number of 1836 organisations were surveyed. Findings of the survey are presented in two parts as follows:
A. IT Resources of Bangladesh
A1 IT Organisations
The total number of IT organisations surveyed were 1836 who are involved in IT related activities. The activities are found to spread over varied dimensions, such as, for office automation, desktop publishing, hardware and software development and marketing, IT training etc. It is seen that after 1995, 966 organisations started using computers which is 52.61% of the total number surveyed. The following activities of the surveyed organisations are noted:
-
Hardware/Software Marketing 0272 (14.81%)
-
Data Processing Services 0154 (08.38%)
-
Human Resources Development 1025 (55.82%)
-
Users (Govt. Offices, Banks, NGOs, 0376 (20.47%) Private and Personal Users)
The distribution of country-wide IT activities on functional basis is computed from the surveyed data as:
-
Office Management 900 (33.67%)
-
Database Management 371 (13.87%)
-
Financial Management 369 (13.80%)
-
Internet Access 313 (11.70%)
-
Networking 233 (08.70%)
-
Health Case Services 028 (01.04%)
-
Others 459 (17.17%)
A2 IT Professionals and Users
The total number of IT professionals and users are found to be 18,717. The job distribution of this IT human resource is as follows:
-
Teacher 3065 (16.37%)
-
Administrator 2386 (12.74%)
-
Systems Analyst 0486 (02.60%)
-
Database Expert 0870 (04.64%)
-
Network Expert 0432 (02.30%)
-
Programmer 1221 (06.52%)
-
Hardware Engineer 0979 (05.23%)
-
Operator 9154 (48.90%)
It is seen that the about 50% of the IT people are working as computer operators numbering to 9154, out of which 782 are involved in DTP and 8372 are in normal data entry/word processing operations. The distribution of the IT professional and people among different types of organisations are shown graphically in Figure 2.
A3 IT Hardware and Software
The IT hardware and software marketed and in use are as follows:
-
Total number of PCs 78658
-
Number of PCs Marketed in 1997-98 25865
-
Total number of Mid Range Computers 1406
-
Total number of Main Frame Computers 0019
-
Total number of Licensed Software 122713
From the survey data, the annual growth rate of PC marketing is found to be around 32.88%. Dhaka Division has the highest concentration (72.76%) of IT involvement, followed by Chittagong (11.14%), Rajshahi (7.93%), Khulna (4.0%), Sylhet (2.8%) and Barisal (1.30%).
A4 National Directory of IT Organisations
In Appendix F, is provided the directory of the IT Organisations of Bangladesh, based on the data as obtained from the present survey. In the directory, are provided the information about the organisation name, mailing address, telephone number, contact person of 1836 surveyed IT organisations of Bangladesh. The details of the involvement of the organisations regarding IT activities, the statistics of PC, Mid-Range, Mainframe, licensed software, customised software that are in use by them are also included in the directory.
B. Y2K Status of Bangladesh
A preliminary analysis of the survey regarding the Y2K issue shows that, among the surveyed 1836 organisations, 1436 are aware of the Y2K problem, 360 are not aware of the problem at the time of the survey. 40 organisations did not respond to the query.
Among these organisations, 174 (of which 102 are commercial organisations) already took steps to solve the Y2K problem in the organisational level. 1608 organisations did not take steps to address the Y2K issue at the time of the survey. The organisations who did not respond to Y2K issue are mostly SMEs (Small and Medium Entrepreneur). Of the total number of organisations, only 101 have Y2K co-ordinators, who are assigned with the responsibilities for taking steps to face the Y2K challenge. It is observed that, during the survey, 280 organisations are certain about the smooth rollover of their system into year 2000.
B1 Overall Y2K Country Status Summary
-
Aware About Y2K Problem 78.21%
-
Made Assessment on Y2K 9.47%
-
Steps Taken for Y2K Solution 9.62%
-
Certain of Smooth Rollover to Year 2000 15.74%
-
Organisation Having Y2K Co-ordinator 5.50%
B2 Percentage Status of Sectoral Y2K Awareness
-
Bank 93.33%
-
Educational/Training Inst. 79.25%
-
Commercial Organisation 70.89%
-
Government Organisation 62.81%
-
NGO 62.68%
B3 Status of Organisations Taking Steps For Y2K
From the survey data, it is seen that 86.66% of the total surveyed financial sector organisations, 13.61% of the total surveyed commercial organisations, 9.35% of the total surveyed government organisations, 7.46% of the total surveyed NGOs and 1.64% of the total surveyed educational/training institutes have taken steps to solve the Y2K problem.
B4 Percentage Status of Sectoral Y2K Co-ordinator Appointment
Regarding the appointment of Y2K co-ordinators, it is seen that the 50% of the total surveyed financial sector organisations, 8.14% of the total surveyed commercial organisations, 7.18% of total surveyed government organisations, 2.98% of total surveyed NGOs and 1.49% of total surveyed educational/training institutes have appointed Y2K co-ordinators.
B5 Percentage Status of Sectoral Smooth Rollover to Year 2000
80% of the total surveyed banks, 25.63% of the total surveyed commercial organisations, 9.06% of the total surveyed government organisations, 14.81% of the total surveyed NGOs and 5.90% of the total surveyed educational/training institutes claimed about their certainty about smooth rollover to the new millennium.
From the above discussion, it is clear that the banking sector is well prepared to tackle the Y2K problem with adequate contingency plan in place in comparison to other sectors.. The commercial(specially SMEs) and government sector organisations are to take immediate steps to tackle the Y2K issue seriously.
Chapter I
Introduction and Background
The present century is the century of Information Technology (IT). Bangladesh, as a developing country, is also sharing the world-wide trend and explosion of IT. It is a fact that our country has a very bright prospect for development and export of software. Realising this prospect, the Government has already announced IT and software export as thrust sector. The private sector also has an important role to play in this sector. But the fact remains that at the present time there is no realistic data or any national information databases on the IT sector. As a result, the sector is growing in an unplanned manner without any proper direction. Realising this, it was felt that there is an urgent need to make a total assessment of the IT resources of Bangladesh. In addition, there is a world wide apprehension of the impact of the year 2000 (Y2K or the millennium) problem on the national as well as global economies.
The millennium problem relating to computer arises from a deceptively simple issue. It is caused by the common programming practice of using the last two digits in a date to represent year (e.g., 98 to represent 1998). With the onset of the new century, the year digits will show 00, which may be interpreted by the computer as 1900, giving erroneous results which may halt or corrupt normal operations of the computer systems. This problem has accumulated over the past 30 years as data processing on computer systems have evolved over these years, without realisation that these program and data will be valid up to the year 2000 only. The Y2K problem, also called the "Millennium Bug" has caused much concern not only among the IT professionals, but also among users of computer systems world-wide. The problem may occur in commercial and custom-made software, in mainframe computers, personal computers, local area networks, and in a wide range of equipment containing embedded chips. This problem is likely to be present in many types of digital electronic equipment and computer software that incorporates a timing function or calculation of elapsed time. These systems include administrative and financial systems that are critical to the orderly conduct of public and private business, and process control systems vital to transport, energy production, life and safety management and utility systems. Basic infrastructure, including power and telecommunications networks, is also vulnerable to the frequent use of standard computer chips in various kinds of electric and electronic equipment. The resolution of the Y2K problem poses an extraordinary technical and managerial challenge for all public and private sector organisations.
It was decided by the Bangladesh Government to analyse the exposure of the year 2000 computer problem and to prepare an action plan on 2000 date change on the computer system. On May 05, 1998, the Ministry of Science and Technology formed a National Advisory Committee on Y2K problem drawing 36 members from all important sectors of the public and private sectors, including representatives from Bangladesh Bank, Telecommunications sector, business and other important ministries and organisations. The National Y2K Advisory Committee, in its first meeting, decided to conduct a countrywide survey to make an inventory and to assess the impact of the Y2K problem. It was decided that a well-designed questionnaire form would be distributed to different government, semi-government, autonomous and private sector computer users and organisations so that an assessment in this regard can be made. The Bangladesh Computer Council(BCC), jointly with Bangladesh Bureau of statistics(BBS), was entrusted with the responsibility for conducting the national survey on IT Resources of Bangladesh and Identification of the Y2K Problem Areas on a national scale. Accordingly, BCC initiated a project to the Ministry of Science and Technology to conduct the above mentioned survey to focus on some preliminary aspects of the national IT resources and on the present status of the country’s preparedness regarding the Y2K problem.
In June 1998, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), allocated a special fund to Bangladesh Computer Council to carry out the survey project. The project team consisted of a Project Director, one Project Manager, two Project Co-ordinators, a program analyst and twenty Survey Executives. The Survey Executives physically visited different organisations with a set of questionnaire forms which were filled up by the IT organisations surveyed. Also, leaflets describing the Y2K problem, its probable adverse effects on computer and IT based hardware and software systems and on the possible solution methodology were distributed by the survey executives.
Chapter II
Survey Objectives
It is presently assumed that there are more than 2000 organisations involved in computer hardware and software marketing/development activities and education and training programmes, which are growing rapidly every year. In the absence of any adequate information database on the number and type of activities of these organisations, formulation of IT policies and plans to initiate IT projects on a national level is really difficult. One of the objectives of the survey is to collect data on IT resources existing in different public and Private sector organisations and their activities and to compile and analyse the data to determine the trend of development of IT industry in Bangladesh.
The second objective of the project is to conduct a survey to assess the status of the Y2K preparedness of the nation. Determination of the overall status the organisations using computer and IT based systems and to analyse the probable impact of the Y2K problem on the computer systems of these organisations. This would enable formulation of necessary strategy to address the Y2K issue adequately.
The project aims specifically to collect the following data:
A IT Resources of Bangladesh
1. Statistics of the number/types of Hardware in Bangladesh
a. Personal Computers (PC)
b. Midrange Computers
c. Mainframe Computers
2. Statistics of application and customised software development in Bangladesh
3. Statistics of IT professionals and People working in different organisations
4. Computer utilisation according to type of usage:
a. Office management
b. Database Management
c. Financial Management
d. Health care services
e. Computer Networking
f. Internet access etc.
5. Statistics of IT organisations involved in different IT activities:
a. Hardware & Software marketing
b. Data Processing service/software development
c. Human resource development
d Users (Government and autonomous organisations, NGOs, hospitals/clinics, private and personal users).
6. Statistics of IT resources, hardware and software marketed by IT companies:
a. Till June, 1997
b. July, 1997 to June, 1998
7. Statistics of the volume of software development/data entry services rendered
8. Yearly turnout of IT professionals and people from formal/non-formal training and education institutions.
9. Statistics of teachers/trainers/instructors imparting IT education and training at different levels.
10. Making a Directory of IT organisations prevailing in the country.
B Identification Y2K Problem Areas
-
1. Status of Y2K awareness of different organisations. List of organisations not aware/not assessed/not taken steps regarding Y2K problem
-
2. Assessment of the Y2K preparedness status of the organisations
-
3. List of organisations which have not taken any steps to solve Y2K problem
-
4. List of organisations which have no Y2K co-ordinator
-
5. Existing system (minimum) configuration in the organisations which may be affected by the Y2K problem.
Chapter III
Methodology
The Project Proposal entitled, "Survey of IT Resources of Bangladesh and Identification of Y2K Problem Areas" was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology in June, 1998. The time frame of the project was 60 days which was divided into three phases, namely, first phase: 7 days; second phase: 45days and third phase: 8 days.
The first 7 days were used for the preparatory works such as selection of the strategy for conduction of the project, composing the questionnaire-form, selecting the target group, selecting the survey executives, distribution of regions and orientation of the survey executives, etc. The questionnaire form was designed through kind consultation with the Project Advisors, invited from the Computer Science Department of Dhaka University, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and BCC. As per the project proposal, the Project Director recruited 20 survey executives, most of whom were Computer Science graduates. The survey executives were given appropriate training and knowledge for conducting the survey in field level.
As per the project proposal, the whole Bangladesh was divided into 10 regions, on the basis of geographical location; each of the regions was covered exclusively by a survey-team, comprising of two survey executives. As the Dhaka City is the most densely populated area of Bangladesh, it was divided into 4 regions. The Organogram of the project is shown in Appendix A. The Survey Executives were advised to fill up the questionnaire form by personally visiting the organisations and verify the answers physically, whenever necessary. They were also asked to prepare a tour-diary reflecting their day to day survey status. Additionally, a leaflet explaining the nature of Y2K problem and an instruction sheet for filling up the questionnaire form was distributed among the surveyed organisations.
Since Dhaka and Chittagong cities contain the most of the IT organisations and the IT activities of the country are also mostly concentrated in these two cities at the present time, a special crash programme of extra 15 days to survey these two cities were taken up after the completion of the initial 45 days. In addition, the questionnaire forms and the Y2K awareness leaflets were sent by post to about 165 organisations, which were not covered in the survey by the survey executives due to severe flood situation prevailing in Dhaka City at that time.
Chapter IV
Key Findings
Introduction
The findings of the survey are divided into two parts. The Part A focuses on the status of the IT resources of Bangladesh and the Part B contains the status of the Y2K preparedness of Bangladesh.
Key findings of the survey on the IT Resources of Bangladesh are shown in Figure 1 through Figure 11 and in Table 1 through Table 16. The total number of organisations surveyed is 1836. Of these, 966 organisations (52.61%) were established after 1995, 565 (30.77%) in 1991-94, 148 (8.06%) in 1986-1990 and 44 (2.4%) before 1981-1985. The maximum growth of the IT organisations( cf. Fig. 1) registered are found to be for Human Resources
Figure 1 Yearly Growth Rate of IT Organisations
Development(HRD). Out of the surveyed 1836 organisations, 1025(55.82%) are involved in HRD programme.
Figure 2 Number of IT People Working in Different Sectors
In Figure 2, we see that the number of computer operators is the highest i.e. 8372 (44.72%) out of 18717 IT professionals and people. The number of programmers is 1221 (6.52%). Major part of the IT people, namely, 7137 (38.13%) are employed in commercial organisations. Percentage distribution of IT people in different sectors is as follows:
Commercial 7137 (38.13%)
Government 3477 (18.57%)
Banks 1952 (10.43%)
NGO 1017 (05.43%)
Education/Training Inst. 5134 (27.42%)
Figure 3 Number of Hardware and Software in Use in Different Sectors
In Figure 3, the distribution of computer hardware/software in different sectors is shown. It is seen that there are 19,797 PC in use for office automation, the highest number, namely, 6837 (34.53%) being used by the commercial organisations. The highest number of customised software, namely, 382 (65.21%) is being used in government organisations.
Figure 4 Statistics of IT Organisations According to Work Area
From Figure-04, we see that 902 (49.47%) organisations use computers for office management and 371 (20.35%) organisations use computer for database
Figure 5 Statistics of Computer Hardware/Licensed Software
Management only. Figure 5 shows that 78658 number of PCs are marketed up to June 1998. The number of PC marketed last year (1997-1998) is 25,865 which indicates a yearly growth rate of 32.88%. A total of 1,22,713 Licensed Software has been marketed up to 1998 and the corresponding growth rate in 1997-98 is 57.64%.
Figure 6 Software and Data Entry Services Earning During 1997-1998
From Fig. 6, we see that the there has been some earning from the software and data entry services sector. Foreign currency earning is not significant.
Figure 7 Number of Students Completed Formal/Non Formal IT Education During 1997-1998
The total number of students turned out in formal and non-formal IT education is shown in Figure 7. It is seen that out of a total of 78,239 students, 5.36% passed in formal sector and 94.64% passed in non-formal sector. The number of Computer Science graduates is 329 (0.42%) number of diploma holders is 4,976 (6.36%) and number of students passed in short certificate courses is 70,448 (90.04%). In Figure 8, we see that the total number of IT teachers is 378 out of which 207 (54.76%) are lecturers.
Figure 8 Number of IT Teachers/Trainers
Figure 9 Division wise Statistics of IT Organisations According to Work Area
Figure 9 shows IT involvement of organisations division wise. It is seen from the figure that Dhaka Division has the maximum concentration of IT involvement followed by Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet in that order. The concentration of IT involvement is Dhaka Division is 72.76%.
Figure 10 Division wise Statistics of IT Organisations According to IT Activities
Figure 10 shows IT activities of organisations division wise. Here it is seen that Rajshahi Division has greater concentration of organisation/users than Chittagong Division especially in Human Resource Development. Here the concentration of IT activities of Dhaka Division is 60%.
Figure 10 shows IT resource engaged in different IT activities. It is seen from this figure that maximum resource is engaged in Government / NGO/ Organisational/ Private users (38.83%) Allowed by Human Resource Development (26.50%).
Figure 11 Resources in Use in Different IT Activities
Table 12 through Table 16 show the district wise distribution of organisations and IT people engaged in different IT activities.
Table 8 shows the District-wise data of the number of organisations that are involved with different categories of IT use. The district-wise numbers of organisations which have been using/marketing computers are shown in Table 9 and 10. It also shows the number of computers/licensed software/Internet service providers that are operational up to June, 1997 and beyond July, 1997 to June, 1998. The total number of PCs, marketed up to 1998 is 91,658. Of this figure, 62,793 are marketed during the time up to June,1997 and 28,865 are marketed during July, 1997 to June, 1998.
The statistics of the IT personnel in the different categories are shown in Table 12. It shows the number of students in several programs like Diploma, Graduate, Post Graduate, etc.
The directory of computer and computer related organisations appear in Appendix F. In the directory, are the information about the organisation name, mailing address, telephone number, and contact person of 1836 surveyed organisations. In the directory, there are also details of the involvement of the organisations regarding its IT activities, the statistics of the use of PC, Mid-Range computers, Mainframe computers, licensed software and customised software.
B. Y2K Status of Bangladesh
The Bangladesh being a relatively small user of computer systems, is relatively less affected by the Y2K problem in comparison to other countries. Computerisation was started at a relatively late stage and large databases were generated only in the late seventies, which are very few in numbers. In fact, there is a realisation that, Bangladesh may benefit by taking advantage of the large data conversion software market, estimated roughly around US $ 600 billion, that has emerged world-wide. But there is also realisation that, if we decide that the Y2K problem for Bangladesh will not be a big problem, then we will make a big mistake. In fact, this may cause even more harm than other developed and developing countries may have the resources to tackle it, whereas we may not have it. But we should neither try to ignore the issue totally nor be overcome panic, rather we should plan the necessary measures to overcome the problem.
An analysis of the survey regarding the Y2K aspects is presented in Figure 12-16 and Table 17 through Table 21(Appendix D). It is found that, among the total surveyed organisations 1836, a total of 1436 are aware of the Y2K problem, 360 are not aware of the problem at the time of the survey. 40 organisations did not respond to the query.
Among the organisations, 174 (of which 102 are commercial organisation) already took steps to solve the Y2K problem at the organisational level. 1,608 organisations did not take any step to address the Y2K issue at the time of the survey. Of the total number of organisations, only 101 have Y2K co-ordinators assigned to face the challenge. Table-21 shows that, at the time of survey, 289 organisations are certain about the smooth rollover of their system into year 2000.
The list of step-taken organisations to solve the Y2K problem is furnished in Appendix-E. The complete directory of IT organisations is furnished in Appendix-F.
Figure 12 Status of Y2K Awareness by Organisation
IT is seen from Figure 12 that the awareness level of banks and other financial institutions is 93.33%, followed by Educational/Training Institutes (79.25%), Commercial Organisations (70.89%), Government Organisations (62.81%) and NGOs (62.68%).
Figure 13 Statistics of Organisation Taking Steps to Address Y2K Problem
Figure 13 shows the Statistics of Organisation who have taken steps to address the Y2K issues. In this respect, the banks and the financial sector organisations are leading (86.66%). Only 13.61% of total surveyed Commercial Organisations and 9.35% of the total surveyed Government Organisations have indicated that they have taken any steps to address the problem.
Figure 14 Number of Organisation Having Y2K Co-ordinator
Figure 15 Number of Organisation which made Assessment of Y2K Involvement
Figure 14 demonstrates the number of Organisations who have appointed Y2K co-ordinators in their organisations to address the Y2K issues. In this respect, the financial sectors is again leading with 50% achievement, trailed by commercial organisation (8.14%) , government organisations (7.18%) and Educational/training Institutes (1.49%).
Figure 15 shows the number of organisations sector-wise who have assessed the extent of Y2K impact on their organisation. The financial institutions, followed by commercial/private organisations and Government organisations are leading in this respect.
Figure 16 Statistics of Organisation Certain About Smooth Rollover
80% of the total surveyed banks have indicated that they are certain about smooth rollover to Year 2000. Most other Government and Commercial Organisations have reserved comments on the issue, not responding on the question. Only 25.63% of the commercial organisations, 9.06% of the government organisations , 14.81% of the total surveyed NGOs and 5.90% of the educational/training institutes are certain of smooth rollover to Y2K.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
Based on the findings of the project, it is advised that for accelerating the growth of use and applications of IT from its present state, a policy of liberalisation and incentives in procurement of IT products for government and private users should be adopted. A national IT Policy and Master Plan should be formulated with adequate emphasis on software copyright law. Human Resources Development on IT must be given foremost importance to utilise the huge unemployed youth in this sector.
The Y2K solution programme should be strengthened by chalking out a national action plan to be implemented by a national body like. For this purpose, Y2K cell established in BCC is to be strengthened and necessary fund be allocated for implementation of Y2K solution and manpower training on the Y2K problem.
