IfG.CC - The Institute for eGovernment

Rubbishing the opposition’s politicking on steps proposed under “security apparatus” for Gwadar city, Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Wednesday assured that no strategy would be enforced there without consultation and against people’s desire.

The chief minister, in a video statement, said that outside Gwadar City, there were some areas which could not be humanely checked or controlled owing to their inaccessibility, so a “temporary fencing mechanism” was proposed under Gwadar Smart City project.

Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal on Tuesday said his government has started development projects worth Rs20 billion in the provincial capital in order to turn Quetta into a safe and smart city.

“A cable is being laid for installation of CCTV cameras in Quetta. The current government has vowed to turn Quetta into a safe city in the first phase and a smart city in the 2nd phase,” the CM said on Tuesday, while talking to journalists.

Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Anusha Rehman Tuesday said the government was aggressively perusing to ensure requisite environment to promote mobile apps to reach under-served across the country.

Addressing “Pakistan Mobile App Awards 2016” ceremony organised by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), she said development of telecom sector was among top priorities and the sector has witnessed exponential growth in different areas.

With a burgeoning population, Pakistan needs massive public sector reforms to manage its planning, governance, public financing systems and the effectiveness of the ways it collects its revenue. A reform agenda championed from the top leadership makes the reform not just impactful but also useful for enhancing service delivery to the citizens. In Punjab, with more than 24 percent of the population living below the poverty line, an approximate 28 million people, public financial management systems must be efficient enough to ensure that public service delivery reaches those for whom it matters the most.

There are around 43 projects which are being executed in the sector and their total cost is Rs. 22.9 billion, an official at Ministry of Information Technology and Communications said on Wednesday.

The official said in order to achieve strategic objectives and enhance the economic growth, policy reforms are envisaged which include spread of Internet to farthest corners of the country (at least upto Tehsil level) so that students, businesses, research institutions and commerce can benefit from the information technology.

Recently, the government had asked the cellular operators to bear all the set-up expenditures of biometric SIMs activation and verification apparatus solely on their own. Currently mobile phone companies are selling SIMs at 250,000 sales points across Pakistan (including service centres, retailers and franchises), but initially it will be installed in at least 70,000 to 75,000 retail outlets across the country.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has given the deadline of Dec 20 to all operators to introduce the biometric system in the country, except Karachi. For Karachi, the deadline is Nov 30. All the five operators have made arrangements to meet the deadline.

“The operators have agreed to meet the deadline and the foolproof biometric system will be in place at their outlets by the end of next month,” a PTA spokesman told Dawn on Thursday. He said a SIM would be issued after getting a thumb impression of the applicant and subsequent verification by the National Database and Registration Authority.

Proactively, cellular operators have installed extra counters and more employees at their front offices and placed even more remote offices to assist their customers. All of the operators have uploaded FAQs (frequently asked questions) on their websites to help their customers understand the process.

This decision was taken during a meeting at the Central Police Office here on Tuesday, which was chaired by Inspector General of Police (IGP) Fayyaz Ahmed Leghari.

The IGP constituted a five-member committee comprising Director Information Technology Sindh Tabassum Abid, SSP Muhafiz Colonel (retd) Wahid, the AIG Establishment, the AIG Administration and the AIG Tele.

The biometric verification drive has brought down the number of active subscriber identification modules (SIMs) from 140 million to 120m, whereas 22m SIMs were blocked, said chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Syed Ismail Shah. The Interior Ministry, Nadra and PTA would jointly audit the data of SIMs verified/blocked, submitted by telecom operators to the Authority, he added.

By the end of given deadline of April 12, 2015, about 108m SIMs were verified, including 70m active, 21m dormant and 17m already verified through BVS, the PTA chief said, adding that about 0.2m blocked or unverified SIMs were open or verifying on daily basis. This, he stated, while addressing the 3rd National Workshop on Telecommunication Reporting held here under the aegis of PTA for the capacity building of media persons.

The new arrangement, proposed couple of years ago will help government improve overall security situation of the country as use often illegal SIMs are used in terror related activities. Fearing a drop in sales, cellular companies were resisting the proposal.

Chairperson Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) Marvi Memon Saturday said that BISP is moving towards e-governance system to monitor the entire field activities at the level of higher management of the organization.

A proper monitoring mechanism has been developed to judge the performance of field staff against special indicators with specific deadlines and responsibilities in order to meet the operational and service delivery related challenges, she said talking to the BISP staff of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K) region during a brainstorming session.

The committee was formed during a briefing held at Aiwan-e-Sadr with President Asif Ali Zardari in chair. Briefing about the meeting Spokesperson to the President Senator Farhatullah Babar recalled that the president had taken serious notice of the difficulties faced by the pensioners in collecting their monthly pensions and had directed the Nadra to design an Automated Pension Disbursement System that would integrate with the existing pension disbursement network to facilitate pensioners across the country.

“The government should take concrete steps to address the issue of limited access to health-care by promoting telemedicine through legislation making it mandatory for higher education institutions to start collaboration with healthcare professionals working in remote areas,” the experts at the symposium said.

It was learnt that senior doctors in the major hospital leave their duties and give charge to under training post graduates. Moreover, senior consultants seldom ensure their presence in OPD.

The long-awaited initiative of E-governance in the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has again come to halt due to ongoing inquiry in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for non-completion of project in stipulated time-period.

The E-governance project initiated in 2006 with cost of Rs175 million to involve citizens in the policy process, illustrating government transparency and accountability and quick disposal of public complaints, may take another year to get fully operational in the CDA.

Chairman PTA stated while addressing the participants of a workshop on “What Can Telecommunications Do for Agriculture” which was organized in collaboration with LIRNEasia, a regional ICT Policy Think Tank, based in Sri Lanka.

Ambassador of China, Nong Rong on Wednesday offered his country’s cooperation for exploring initiatives to transform Islamabad into a smart city with introduction of automation, in su-pervision and management.

The envoy made the offer in a meeting with Capital Development Authority’s chairman, Aamer Ali Ah-med.