PM sees launch of Pakistan Citizens’ Portal as one of manifestations of Naya Pakistan

PM sees launch of Pakistan Citizens’ Portal as one of manifestations of Naya Pakistan
APP52-28 ISLAMABAD: October 28 - Prime Minister Imran Khan addresses the inauguration ceremony of "Pakistan Citizens Portal" at PM Office. APP

ISLAMABAD, Oct 28 (APP):Prime Minister Imran Khan Sunday termed his government’s innovative programme of Pakistan Citizens’ Portal 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.
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Dr Fahmida Mirza, Principal Secretary to PM Azam Khan, Special Assistant to PM on Political Affairs Naeemul Haq, Special Assistant to PM on Media Iftikhar Durrani, Special Assistant to PM on Overseas Pakistanis Syed Zulfiqar Hussain Bukhari and others, besides a number of media persons, attended the event.
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.
Imran Khan also maintained that he was the elected prime minister and chief executive of the country and was responsible for the affairs of the whole country while resolving the issues faced by public was his responsibility.
About the Saudi package, he said there were no strings attached to it and declared that he would also break goods news to the nation in the coming days.
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.
The prime minister said certain elements raising hue and cry had been facing old NAB cases and his government had not yet initiated anything against them. The democracy could be in danger if such occasion arose in future, he said in a lighter vein.
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.
Earlier, it was informed that efforts were made to integrate all the other complaint systems with this integrated portal from the federal level to the district level.

APP Services