Interactive session on ‘E-Governance’ in Punjab

Electronic voting based on biometric identification of the voters is very much possible in Pakistan as National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) is fully capable to provide the required solutions to Election Commission. The only thing required for it is the political will and consensus of all political parties and stakeholders.The only thing required for it is the political will and consensus of all political parties and stakeholders.

These were the views of Burhan Rasool, Director, Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), Government of Punjab, and Advisor, Center for Technology in Governance of the Information Technology University, Lahore, who was presenting an overview of the various e-governance initiatives being taken by the provincial government in the recent past, in an interactive session at Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Islamabad.

The speaker underlined the need of such technological interventions, stating that the earlier bureaucratic systems in place lacked effective mechanism for performance monitoring and evaluation. As a result, despite very positive and bright progress reports presented by the government functionaries the ground realities were in stark contrast. The situation however, according to the expert, was improving considerably after the technological solutions were adopted.
He explained in detail how PITB came up with the solution of using mobile applications for the check and balance, and shared the results of this intervention in terms of figures and statistics. The expert backed his claim of success with the examples of reduction in dengue fever casualties, crime rates, corruption and improved system of academic evaluation in Punjab.

It may be mentioned that Burhan has the honor of receiving the Innovation Hero Award, from the Chief Minister Punjab, for his role in developing the (smartphones based) Monitoring Platform that helped a great deal in controlling the dengue epidemic in 2012.