UK government always had been in good partnership with Pakistan:Ben French

Lahore: The Head of Department of International Development (UK)  Ben French has said that the Punjab Information Technology Board was striving to bring sustainable development and transparency in Punjab by using modern technology skillfully.

He visited the PITB Chairman Dr. Umar Saif who briefed him about the multi sectoral projects initiated by the PITB on Monday.

Mr. French said that the innovative use of IT in Punjab by the PITB has no parallel in UK even.

He informed the meeting that UK government always had been in good partnership with Pakistan at all levels particularly in the field of poverty alleviation, health, education and governance. He hoped that the projects undertaken by the PITB would be highly helpful to solve the grave issues of governance, corruption, illiteracy, diseases, poor industrial and economic growth and energy crisis.

Mr. Bench expressed a desire to extend the UK cooperation in strengthening governance and Right to Information in Punjab in near future. Earlier, the Chairman PITB Dr. Umar Saif briefed the guests about completed and ongoing projects of PITB. He said that the Punjab’s technology spearhead, PITB had maintained the foundational IT infrastructure and system of Punjab. He said that the organization had provided systems and solutions through the innovative projects like Dengue Tracking System, Disease Surveillance System, Crime Registration, Teachers’ presence tracking, e-vaccination program, Punjab Drug Inspection, Public Feedback System, E-learn program and  Automation of Vehicle registration etc. “PITB’s immense efforts towards better and transparent mobile governance reforms have been acknowledged globally as well, for instance recently the World Bank’s President appreciated our mobile governance reforms at the World Bank’s Daylight Dialogue’ 2014 in Philippines.

He told that programs of PITB are in deep conformity with the DFID’s designs and an anticipated partnership on open governance would bring further improvement in Punjab’s RTI Law implementation. DFID’s Governance Advisor Omar Mukhtar Khan was also present there.