WB team apprised of PITB reforms

LAHORE

A delegation of World Bank visited Punjab IT Board (PITB) on Tuesday where PITB Chairman Dr Umar Saif briefed it about the mid-term progress on Punjab Public Management Reforms Project (PPRMP) in a meeting held at Arfa Software Technology Park.

The delegation was headed by the Task Team Leader Zubair Khurshid Bhatti accompanied by Senior Public Sector Specialist Ms Clelia Rontoyanni and Consultant Naveed Saeed. Dr Saif said that the PITB team was working hard to achieve the given targets such as to enhance transparency, resource management and performance monitoring in the Health, Agriculture, Excise & Taxation, Higher Education, Irrigation, Livestock & Dairy Development, Local Government & Community Development and School Education Department of Punjab by skillful use of smart technology.

He said “our e-Vaccs programme is so successful that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan are also replicating it. Another programme “Vet-Inspect” is a smart phone application that enables district administrative officers to inspect facility per pre-defined targets and report data on the move. More than 100 smart phones have been provided to the district and deputy district officers Livestock who have recorded more than 700 monitoring activities so far.

Similarly android-based smartphones have been provided to districts supervisory officers of health department i.e. EDO, DO and DDO who have been tasked with visiting health facilities in government hospitals across the province. Supervisory officers report data through ‘Healthwatch’ application for indicators like non-functional equipment, stock-out medicines and absenteeism, the supervisors takes a self-photo that is submitted along with the data to authenticate that the officer visited the facility in-person. The reports submitted by these officers automatically pop up on a map in real time with GPS accuracy of five metres and available for use by managers at various levels. The health watch programme has helped to improve attendance of doctors and staff in public hospitals. Moreover, a number of helplines is functional to bridge up the gap between departments and the citizens.”

The World Bank team discussed the scaling up of PPRMP and lauded performance of PITB on the project. Zubair Khurshid Bhatti assured of maximum assistance to make it a success.

The height of the proposed underpass will be 3.1 metre and high roofed vehicles like busses, trucks cannot use this underpass. The LDA officials said around 40,000 vehicles will use the proposed underpass daily. They said LDA will directly bear the cost of its construction. Out of the total cost, LDA will spend Rs 7 million for land acquisition while
Rs 5 million will be spent on shifting of utilities.