Baqar launches five digital programmes to allow easy access to government services

The Sindh government on Wednesday launched various digital services, including e-Services Sindh and e-Pay Sindh, to enable the people to access government services and make payments to the government in an easier and faster way.

Speaking at the launch ceremony, Sindh Caretaker Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar said the provincial government had initiated a single digital platform for all citizens of the province to minimise human interaction, and ensure transparency, departmental accountability and disposal of all cases within seven working days as a step for transformation from the manual mode to e-governance.

The ceremony was held at a hotel where the interim CM launched the services by pressing a key of the computer.

He said that this groundbreaking initiative would revolutionise the way citizens interacted with the Sindh government.

He said the Sindh government’s new initiatives included a digital payment feature titled e-Pay Sindh that allowed the citizens to make payments for government services securely and conveniently through their mobile devices, Easy Paisa, credit cards, debit cards, ATM and banks.

The event was told that the Board of Revenue had introduced five transformative e-services that would make it easier, faster and more convenient for the people to access government services. They included the e-Services Sindh mobile phone application which was available at Google Playstore and Apple App Store. Currently, two departments had launched it but eventually all the departments would adopt it, it was said.

Secondly, there is e-Registration for registered sale deeds, a service that allows the citizens to register their sale deeds through online applications, payments and appointments for biometric verification and registration before the sub-registrars. This would save them from the hassle of visiting a government office and standing in long queues or going through problematic manual systems.

There is also an e-Mutation service for changing record of rights of land. This service would allow the citizens to easily change the record of rights for their land online and directly.

It would be automatically updated online and available to the general public. This would save time and money for citizens, and also help ensure that land records are accurate and up-to-date.

The Sindh cabinet had last Monday directed the Board of Revenue to digitally rewrite the record of rights within the next six months. This digitally rewritten record of rights would be integrated with the e-registration and e-mutation database.

The city survey record of the entire province would also be digitised and integrated with this database within the next six months.

The Sindh government also launched the Industrial Estate Management System for SITE Limited and Sindh Small Industrial Estates. This service would provide a centralised platform for managing industrial estates in the province.

“This will help improve the efficiency and productivity of these estates, and will also attract new investment,” Justice (retd) Baqar said.

He added that these five e-services — e-Pays, e-Services, e-Registration, e-Mutation and Industrial Estate Management System — were just the beginning of a journey towards a fully digital government as the Sindh government was committed to providing citizens with easy, convenient and transparent access to government services.

The caretaker CM also appreciated the Board of Revenue team that worked tirelessly to develop these e-services.

He remarked that the e-services would be a game-changer for the people of the province as they would not only make government services more accessible, efficient and transparent but also help promote economic growth and development.