PM Imran Khan launches 'Pakistan Citizen Portal'

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan launched ‘Pakistan Citizen Portal’ with an aim to timely address problems of the people and get their feedback.

PM Khan termed his government’s innovative programme a medium for ‘a quantum change’ by enabling the citizens to have a say in the government affairs through registration of their complaints/suggestions, highlighting the functioning of all its ministries, departments and offices.

Addressing the launching ceremony of the Pakistan Citizens’ Portal (PCP) here at the PM Office, the prime minister said it was one of the manifestations of “Naya Pakistan” in which the people would get a sense to own the government.

He said the previous rulers failed to change the colonial mindset and treated the people as subjugated class. Such trend did not change and the public expectations with the government offices ran very low, but now that trend had to change, the government offices and officers should serve the people, he added.

The prime minister said the citizens could raise their voices online and the departments and offices concerned would be bound to respond in the specific timeline to address their complaints and the PM Office would oversee the progress on those issues.

He said the idea to launch such a web portal was first of its kind in the country’s history, interconnecting about 4,000 government offices.

He expressed the confidence that the programme would also help the government to make policies based upon public feedback and suggestions, and their opinion would serve as springboard and thrust for such policies.

The prime minister regretted that unfortunately the wealthy and influential people got their issues resolved but the ordinary man on the street had to suffer.

Changing the mindset of government functionaries was vital to improve the governance system in the country, he said, adding through easy access to the web portal by all and sundry, the politicians, ministers and government functionaries had been made accountable.

On the occasion, the prime minister formally launched the portal. The people can approach the government departments concerned through Pakistan Citizen’s Portal after completing their registration process with the help of specific mobile application download.

The PM Office will supervise redressal of public grievances by the departments concerned and consider the feasibility of public proposals sent to it by the citizens.

The integrated system, an initiative of the Prime Minister Performance Delivery Unit (PMDU), has the latest information technological tools for its functioning.

The portal contains 20 different inbuilt categories (3,796 offices) for facilitation and the citizens, parliamentarians, overseas Pakistanis and foreigners will have to complete the registration process before accessing its various tools and pages.

The prime minister, in his speech, further said the erstwhile neglected and deprived classes of the society, including females belonging to remote areas, would be able to approach the departments concerned. The overseas Pakistanis, especially the labour class, would also benefit from the web portal as they could register their issues and the embassies concerned abroad had to respond.

Similarly, the parliamentarians would also be able to register their concerns, he added.

He said the programme would help the government to devise a merit-based policy in the promotion and demotion of government functionaries on the basis of their performance.

He noted that corruption was the main reason for eroding the efficacy and functioning of the government departments. Citing Singapore and Turkey, he said those countries rose on the economic horizons, which had tackled the menace.

The prime minister observed that the country had been facing an enormous burden of foreign debts and bringing the foreign investment to the country was needed by introducing a culture of ‘ease of doing business ’. The foreign and local investors would get facilitation through the PCP.

He referred that such facility had been introduced by the Turkish government to attract foreign investment.

He said it would be leapfrog as the country had immense potential with about 100 million talented youth under the age of 35 years. The world was anxious to explore the investment opportunities offered by the country.

He said the web portal would also make the people at the helms of affairs to realize that they were the public servants and paid from the public tax money, so they have to serve the masses.

The prime minister said during the 1960’s, the country had the best performing bureaucracy and the foreigners from the Middle East and Gulf arrived in Pakistan on sojourns, but now the tide had changed.

On the occasion, the prime minister also introduced a team of young people from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which had achieved such marvel during the previous tenure of PTI provincial government by launching a similar web portal system there.

The prime minister said such were the initiatives taken by PTI government in KP that the people had re-elected his party with two-third majority in the general election.

Later responding to a number of questions by the media persons, Imran Khan said about 60 per cent work on interconnecting the government offices had been achieved linking the federal government, and KP and Punjab provinces.

He said they would forward and highlight to the other two provincial governments about the public issues / complaints received through the portal.

Responding to another question regarding complaints about the judicial system, he said the PTI government was also working to reform CrPC under its 100 days agenda and would forward public complaints to the judiciary.

He said those people, who did not possess smart phones, would have the option to access through toll free no. 0800, email or writing letters or applications.

How it works

The portal is a simple tool that allow citizens to register themselves through an app and send their complaints to the concerned government departments.

Talking to media, Deputy Secretary of Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (PMDU) Adil Saeed Safi said after registering himself with the portal, every citizen whether he or she is in Pakistan or lives abroad can register a complaint online through an app which would be run through beta android version.

However, efforts are being made to include IOS version so that citizens having iPhone can also register their complaints.

A report regarding the status of complaints received would be regularly sent to the premier.

Giving further details, he said the complaints would automatically reach the heads of relevant departments who would take appropriate step to address the matter.

The maximum time limit for addressing the complaint would be ten days.

The system would be a replication of the portal successfully running in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

About 3760 federal and provincial departments are linked with the portal and the letters had been written to all the provincial governments about the new initiative, he told.

Adil Safi said the portal would be a step forward towards establishing responsive governance in Pakistan.

The application allows citizens to register their complaints about multiple sectors of service delivery.

Citizens can upload picture/video/audio files in support of their complaints to ensure proper action.

Citizen’s Portal is first of its kind application in Pakistan that uses ICT towards establishing e-governance in true sense.

A unique essence of the app is the integration at various levels of the government structure.

A complaint registered by a citizen is immediately available at the dashboards of the concerned ministries and departments.

The official said citizens can provide feedback and rate their complaint resolution to inform authorities in case if complaint is not resolved to their level of satisfaction.

The motive of the Citizen’s Portal is that “No complaint will remain unresolved”.

The objective is to resolve all complaints amicably regardless of its complexity and nature.