A final blueprint, prepared with government help, to harness the strength of Information Communication Technology and the opportunities it presents towards improving growth in the economy and the social standards of the country is expected to be out next month.

Many entities with this common intent have worked and prepared draft IT roadmaps and action plans.  Some of the more significant of these include the efforts of the Competitiveness Initiative of USAID and the ICT Committee of the National Chamber of Commerce.  There are also many support institutions like the World Bank and SIDA (Swedish International Development Agency) that have already committed in principle to look at aspects of such a roadmap and help implement it.  The Ministry of Economic Reform, Science and Technology, officials said, will co-ordinate the multilateral assistance in implementing a national policy for ICT in Sri Lanka.

Eran Wickramaratne, IT advisor to the ministry said that it was too early to comment on the ICT blueprint but said the steering committee was at work to finalise the document within the next few weeks.  He was of the view that Sri Lankans are full of ideas but poor in implementation skills and that there was a need to get action plans moving.