ISLAMABAD ( NADEEM REPORT )
Ms. Anusha Rahman, State Minister for IT delivered a lecture at the National Police Academy, Islamabad to a joint session of trainee Assistant Superintendants of Police on the topic “What is needed to improve an institution – what type of police our nation needs”.
The Minister said that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are acting as a catalyst for the world in creating new and better opportunities, sustaining economies, resulting in increasing our knowledge and vision regarding development of criminal databases, using forensic tools and techniques, smart gadgets, not only to prosecute the criminals but also to decline the crime rate in the society by applying the latest ICT systems.
The Minister added that in the spirit of democratic governance, revolutionary polices and visionary approach, present Government of Pakistan gives very high priority to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector, particularly e-governance including e-police to maintain the law and order situation in the country.
The Minister stated that the present Government of Pakistan is exploiting latest emerging technologies to facilitate engagement with government organizations by citizens, businesses and other government departments (G2C, G2B, and G2G) through a vision “Accelerated digitization Ecosystem to enable socio-economic development, expanding knowledge based economy and spur the economic growth”.
With this vision, the goals are to increase government efficiency and effectiveness, transparency and accountability in decision making, deliver efficient and cost-effective public services to citizens including their safety and businesses and set measurable targets and KPIs and effectively monitor their progress;
The Minister informed that the Government of Pakistan is aggressively pursuing the automation of Pakistan Police processes and for this purpose, the Ministry of Information Technology has completed a project for the computerization of major internal functions of Islamabad Police like automation of criminal records, FIR and other internal registers with Urdu interface along with connectivity with of 13 Police stations and 11 office locations of Islamabad Police. Furthermore, the processing and issuance of computerized driving licenses, Development of ERP system for the Police Headquarters and GIS Based Software for Rescue 15 are other major achievements towards IT-enablement of Police department. The Minister further added that the Ministry of IT in consultation with all the relevant stakeholders has drafted ‘Electronic Crime Bill’ which will soon be presented to the Parliament of Pakistan for its approval and realization.
The Minister also pointed out the critical areas like creation of criminals’ databases, DNA tracking, usage of CCTV cameras and smart ICT equipment, tracing phone calls etc. which are related to crimes and security issues and where ICT can be helpful for the Police force to solve such cases and to prevent them, proactively.