Software makers protest plan to hand over Janata Tower to ICT ministry

Software manufacturers and exporters yesterday expressed concern about the government's decision to turn Janata Tower into the ICT ministry office instead of making the multi-storey building a software technology park.
The software makers said the newly formed information and communication technology ministry has moved to cancel the allocation of Janata Tower to Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), a platform of software manufacturers and exporters. The ministry wants its office in the building.
“The ICT ministry is trying not only to shift its own office from the secretariat to this building, but also to rent different floors of the building to different government and private offices,” said Mahboob Zaman, president of BASIS, at a press conference in Janata Tower in Dhaka.
“So far, what we could understand is that the ICT ministry is soon sending a proposal to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to cancel the allocation to the BASIS, and shift the ministry office into the building,” Zaman said.
Hasina allocated Janata Tower to BASIS in the first meeting of the 'Digital Bangladesh Taskforce' held on August 3, 2010 to establish the country's first software park.
Zaman said, after the allocation by the prime minister, BASIS has been renovating the building in public-private partnership in the last 20 months to set up the software park.
“We are in the final stages of renovation. We hope to establish a software park soon, if the government does not cancel the allocation,” Zaman said.
“We seek the prime minister's intervention in the matter, so that the government establishes the software park in Janata Tower and doesn't shift the ICT ministry office to the building,” he said.
He said many local and foreign software companies will feel discouraged if the government cancels the allocation of the tower to the association.
The government should not make delay in taking the decision to establish the software park as the sector is growing at a faster rate with high export growth, he said.
Zaman said software export from the country grew by 96 percent in the last six months.
In July-November last year, the country exported software and other computer services worth $29.05 million. Exports stood at $45.31 million in fiscal 2010-11.
The government acquired Janata Tower in 2000 after the High Court convicted former president HM Ershad and his wife Raushan Ershad in a corruption case regarding purchase of the land on which they constructed the building.