Dr Umar Saif currently chairs the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), heading all public-sector IT projects in Punjab. In an exclusive interview, he shared his insights on how IT can help metamorphose the country into a thriving digital economy. What follows is the kernel of his exhaustive analysis of the same.
INTERVIEW
Dr Umar Saif currently chairs the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), heading all public-sector IT projects in Punjab. In an exclusive interview, he shared his insights on how IT can help metamorphose the country into a thriving digital economy. What follows is the kernel of his exhaustive analysis of the same.
Q: Do you believe IT can transform the economy of Pakistan?
A: It is true that Pakistan has missed huge opportunities in developing an ecosystem for its IT industry. As a comparison, India’s software exports exceed $126 billion, Philippines at $25 billion and Pakistan only at $2 billion. Pakistan software industry contributes less than 1 percent of the GDP.
IT industry can help transform the economy by boosting exports, increasing foreign investments and creating jobs. In the past seven years, we have taken several steps to create a start-up ecosystem in Pakistan, incubating over 160 companies with a collective valuation of over $70 million. With our e-rozgaar program, we are training 10,000 university graduates to earn up to $30/day by online freelancing, adding over $100 million to the economy. Punjab became the first province to launch an IT policy, laying the foundation for growing the IT industry by tax incentives, favourable regulations and creation of special economic zones to replicate the structure of our Arfa Software Technology Park. I believe that in the next 5 years, IT can contribute as much as 10 percent of the GDP.
Q: How instrumental can IT be in improving governance, transparency and accountability of governments?
A: In the past six and a half years, the IT has played a transformational role in improving government in Punjab. The PITB has completed over 350 projects in all important government sectors. We have totally computerised the land record system, digitising land ownership records of over 57 million rural land owners. All 713 police stations in Punjab are computerised and over 2.1 million computerised FIRs have been registered so far. Stamp papers have been replaced with e-stamp in Punjab, ruling out the chances of frauds like backdating and counterfeiting. This has resulted in eliminating over Rs16 billion annual pilferage of stamp duty.
Using our smartphone-based monitoring system, Punjab’s vaccination coverage has risen from below 25 percent to over 85 percent in less than two years. The same system has been replicated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan. Using our biometric attendance system in Tehsil Headquarter (THQ) and District Headquarter (DHQ) hospitals, attendance of doctors has improved from 53 percent to 87 percent. Our medicine inventory system has resulted in improving medicine availability to over 85 percent in small THQ and DHQ hospitals. Our school monitoring and computerised student enrolment system has totally eliminated ghost schools, teacher absenteeism, and bogus enrolment in Punjab. Our targeted agriculture subsidy system, which eliminates the middle-man for routing the subsidy, has reduced wastage of over Rs30 billion agriculture subsidies in fertiliser and seed. The list goes on, and many of our projects have been lauded internationally.
Q: Has PITB extended help to other provinces also or is your work limited to Punjab only?
A: In my tenure, the PITB has made an extra effort to reach out to all provincial governments and assist them free of cost. We worked with the KP government, despite political fault lines, replicating our systems for police, counterterrorism, and health in the province. These systems have had substantial positive impact in these departments in the KP. We assisted the Sindh government in replicating our work for police, entrepreneurship, and ease-of-doing businesses. We have helped Gilgit-Baltistan government with their safe city project, federal government in computerising the entire Hajj process, and Balochistan government in police systems, vaccination coverage and school monitoring.
Our projects of establishing startup incubators and e-rozgaar centers have been replicated countrywide both in the public and private sectors. We are often credited as the main catalyst in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Pakistan.
Q: What should be the way forward? Do you think the new government can fully realise the potential of IT in the country?
A: The way forward for Pakistan is to expand IT-led reforms in the government and use the IT as an engine for economic growth and job creation. Unfortunately, the current institutional structure of the IT at the federal level is not very conducive to accomplish this. Based on the success of the PITB, the federal IT ministry created a National IT Board but it failed to deliver. The Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has also failed to perform any meaningful role in improving IT exports in Pakistan. National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) has the national database of citizens, technical manpower, and countrywide presence but their role has been limited to the operational logistics of making and renewing CNICs. NADRA’s data has not been used to expand tax network, scale up programs like health insurance or account for out-of-school children, integrate with provincial agencies for surveillance or enforcement of law & order across the country, etc. It’s instructive to make a comparison of NADRA with India’s recent Aadhaar program to understand the potential of a national database of citizen identification data.
Provincially, other than the PITB, there are few examples of functioning IT departments or boards in the country. This is what led us to wholeheartedly extend our cooperation to other provinces, but there is a dire need for better provincial structure to realise the potential of IT, especially since after the 18th amendment, most of the service delivery is devolved to the provinces.
Finally, the government needs to define clear roadmap to recognise and support the IT industry. Pakistan’s IT industry can contribute as much as 10 percent of the GDP (as opposed to 1 percent at this time), in the next five years. However, the government needs to make consistent policies, devise incentives and set up facilities such as the Arfa Technology Park and special economic zones for the IT industry to grow.
At this time, each province has its own sales tax regime for IT companies, proposals for the IT special economic zones have been pending for years without any clear direction and the government does not recognise that the IT industry may need special dispensation required to grow it at a level that countries like India have been able to. Drawing a comparison with India, since it’s just next door, the Indian prime minister announced a package of $15 billion for its IT industry in 2016. Pakistan also needs to support its IT industry at a similar scale.
The writer is staff member
