President wants parliament digitised by Jan 2023

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has asked all the stakeholders to implement the digitalisation process of the Parliament by January 2023.

“A cyber efficient parliament would prove to be a milestone in improving government efficiency, transparency and responsiveness,” he said while chairing a meeting on President’s Initiative for Cyber Efficient Parliament (PICEP) at Parliament House here on Wednesday.

The meeting was attended by Chairman Senate Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser, Minister for Information Technology & Telecom (MoIT&T), Syed Amin-ul-Haque, Secretary MoIT&T Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui and secretaries of Senate and National Assembly.

Officials of the Ministry of Information Technology & Telecom briefed the meeting on the implementation of the PICEP plan. They said PC-1 of the project had been prepared which would be sent to the competent forum -- after completion of the required formalities -- for allocation of funds for the financial year 2021-2022.

President Alvi stressed the need to meet the timelines with regard to implementation of the project. He advised all stakeholders to work in unison for early completion of this important project. He lauded the Ministry of Information Technology & Telecom for timely designing the PICEP’s PC-1.

Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani and Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser appreciated the initiative of the president and said the project once fully implemented would enhance the efficiency of the Parliament manifold.

They also assured their full support in the early completion of the project. They also directed their respective secretariats to work out a plan for capacity enhancement of the members in terms of information technology and gadgetry.

Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser recalled that before the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly -- when he was its speaker -- was digitised and gadgets were installed in the house, a capacity building exercise was conducted through IP3 partnership.

He said in this case services of PIPS would be used. He said with the implementation of the cyber efficient plan all publications and agenda and its relevant papers would be sent to the members electronically. He also said that the assembly would save millions of rupees spent on paper and printing.