Special Assistant to Chief Minister Punjab Azm-ul-Haq visits PITB

Lahore: Special Assistant to Chief Minister Punjab Azm-ul-Haq has said that IT based projects of Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) were playing an effective role in improving governance and public service delivery as desired by the Chief Minister Punjab. He was addressing a meeting during his visit to PITB last day.

Chairman of PITB Dr. Umar Saif gave a detailed presentation on the initiatives taken by his organization. Applauding the work of PITB, Azm-ul-Haq however urged integrated usage of data, strict actions thereon and vigorous follow up to root out corruption and malpractices prevailing in public offices.

Earlier, Dr. Umar Saif said that PITB was striving to improve almost every department of the Punjab Government through modern technology with as many as 21 programs launched only for Health department. The other main stakeholders included Education, Police, Livestock, Agriculture, Irrigation, Local Government & Community Development, Environment, Food, Revenue, Rescue 1122 and even Federal Ministry of Religious Affairs & Hajj, he added. The best use of technology was recently witnessed by the millions of Hajj applicants who got registered, balloted and informed online without facing any hassle as experience in near past.

Moving towards flagship projects, Dr. Saif told that ongoing wheat procurement in Punjab was also benefitted by the technology as more that 0.1 million wheat growers had been contacted through CM’s robocall to dig out any sign of corruption and misconduct allegedly showed on government procurement center and the same was being practiced through Citizen Feedback Monitoring Program (CFMP) in other lucrative departments the citizens approach for day to day services. More than 9.2 million citizens throughout the province had been contacted vide CFMP and more than 7500 officials had been proceeded against on the charges of corruption leveled through the IT system, he said.

“Our programs such as Computerization of police stations, Crimes Mapping, Integrated Command, Control and Communication (IC3) System and Land Record Information Management System were proving as a catalyst for changing “Patwari & Thana Culture” in Punjab. The first e-Khidmat Center is providing a number of services i.e. CNIC/passport, arms license, certificates of birth, death, marriage, divorce and domicile, Fard, traffic fine collection, issuance of route permit, motor vehicle registration and token tax collection services etc. under one roof at Rawalpindi while work is in progress on two such centers at Lahore and one each at remaining Divisions of Punjab. The e.Learn Punjab and Smart School Monitoring are the programs aimed at improving our education system digitally.

The PITB has developed dengue tracking applications that curbed the disease successfully while Disease Surveillance System, e- vaccination, medicine inventory management system, Health watch and drugs inspection watch programs are concurrently improving health services in Punjab. We are further planning to install 2,000 public service centers by December this year to get public feedback on the performance of govt. departments. Plan9 is the first and largest incubator of Pakistan that has revolutionized startup entrepreneurship in Pakistan and it has got great acceptance from across the country as major universities have collaborated with PITB to get their own incubators.” he concluded.

Senior team members Waqar A. Qureshi, Rizwan Ahmad, Faisal Yousaf, Sajid Latif, Ms. Muhibbi Hussain, Fasieh Mehta, Burhan Rasool, Ms. Komal Khan, Kashif Farooq and others also shared the marathon presentation.
At the end of meeting, Azm-ul-Haq visited Plan9 corridor and shared comments with the startup learners. Mr. Uzair briefed him on the occasion.