KP to digitalise public services

PESHAWAR: A meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on Wednesday approved the proposed one-year action plan of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board (KP-ITB) KP-ITB for the initiatives and interventions to be launched during the next year.

Besides cabinet members Kamran Bangash, Ziaullah Bangash and Ghazan Jamal, the meeting was attended by secretary Science and Information Technology, managing director KP-BOIT and other relevant officials, said an official handout.

Under the plan, various public services being provided by different government departments including domicile certificate, birth certificate, driving license, motor car registration, etc would be digitized at the backend.

After completion of backend digitalization, these services would be provided to the citizens under one roof through the Citizens Facilitation Centers (CFCs) established under the KP-BOIT so that citizens would not need to visit various offices to avail the services.

Similarly, under the paperless government initiative of the provincial government, work will be started on introducing e-office system in government departments, and initially e-office system will be introduced in Chief Minister’s Secretariat.

To begin with the e-office initiative, an online system of summaries will be introduced in all the departments followed by an online system of the rest of the file works.

Moreover, the mobile applications of all the departments will be centralized into a super-app. A centralized online system of data of all the government departments will also be introduced to ensure easy access to the public to government departments data.

Approving the plan, the chief minister directed the officials to give realistic timelines for implementation of the initiatives.

Mahmood Khan directed the relevant quarters to bring the IT-related business of all the departments under the umbrella of KP-ITB.

The chair directed the relevant officials to come up with feasible proposals to introduce a centralized online system for the mutation of lands.

Agreeing to the proposal of having a Cyber Response Center to ensure the safety of government department’s online data, Mahmood Khan directed the relevant quarters to initiate work on the scheme.

Meanwhile, another communication said the chief minister formally launched Mobile Water Quality Testing Labs for divisional headquarters.

The launching ceremony was held here at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat House. It was told that, initially the labs have been launched at the eight divisional headquarters of KP which is an addition to the existing facilities as fixed Water Quality Testing Labs are already functional at the divisional headquarters.

Praising the work of Public Health Engineering officials for successfully launching the labs, he hoped these labs would play a vital role in providing clean drinking water to the people of far-flung areas of the province.

The officials said the newly established labs would be sent to the far-flung areas of the province for testing the water quality to ensure that clean and hygienic drinking water is available to the public of remote areas of the province.