PANJIM: Goa IT Professionals (GITP) on Tuesday wrote to the Chief Minister to promote a culture of widespread technological innovation in Goa by allowing students to purchase required information and communication technology (ICT) hardware from the market and avail a government subsidy against it capped at the amount the government will spend per laptop.
GITP looks forward to decisive action from the government in scrapping the inefficient ITG tender, and taking a new approach as recommended.
“Though government’s intent in enabling the Goan youth on ICT through this scheme is commendable and while this scheme has had scattered positive impact in the past, it has also had its lion’s share of allegations and issues of sub-standard hardware being procured at higher than market prices, misuse/selloff by recipients” said GITP.
“Cyberage has suffered poor end-user utilisation due to unsuitability of supplied laptops for diverse and specialised high-processing power usage. One common laptop configuration cannot cater to varied student requirements considering their education streams and interests. Also, not every student needs a laptop if they already have one and it would help them to have add-on computer hardware for experimentation and research on IoT, robotics,” the professionals said.
GITP demands that the government or its bodies instead of getting into procurement of commoditised hardware on a large scale should use such opportunities to boost the wider local technology supplies economy which forms the bedrock of any technological innovation hub and is a major known weakness for Goa so far.
