ISLAMABAD ( BMZ REPORT )
Historically the PSDP IT project titled “E-office Replication” was approved on 30th April, 2007, and the said application was developed and implemented at Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT) under a pilot PSDP project in 2004. However, in the past, the said project was delayed since 2007 and the project deliverables were not achieved in time due to different administrative and technical reasons particularly non-availability of data center and e-gov intranet, lack of political will and past top management vision and support. In this regard, handsome budget has also been wasted on e-government projects. The present government has given utmost priority to the ICT Sector particularly e-government system and the Ministry is emphatically pursing the e-office suite implementation in the Federal Government. Furthermore, the senior management of MoIT also tasked the Pakistan Computer Bureau (PCB) to roll-out the e-office suite within stipulated period of time.
Project Director (e-Office Application) while briefing about the project informed that progress regarding successful implementation of e-Office Application including e-filing system in all federal ministries/Divisions is that ‘e-Government Intranet’ has been established for e-communication amongst all Federal Ministries/Divisions. The configuration of network is initiated with the support of National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) and most of the Federal Ministries/Divisions are now connected to each other through this intranet. Moreover, The Survey has been conducted to collect the data regarding officer and supporting staff along with their roles and responsibilities, status of IT infrastructure and workflows of all the Federal Ministries/Divisions for the configuration of e-Office Application. Moreover, the multi-ministry has been installed/deployed at state of the art 3-tier dedicated e-Gov Data Center.
It is further stated by Project Director that, to roll-out the e-Office Application in Federal Ministries/Divisions, the nominations of focal persons from 34 ministries have been received. In connection thereof, a specialized training for orientation on e-Office is being imparted to focal persons for successful change management. For successful change management and ownership, MoIT will be convening a meeting of focal persons at MoIT, this will improve the overall implementation progress.
Project Director also highlighted that e-Office Application will be implemented in phased manner as directed by Minister of State for IT. Therefore e-Office team has been deputed in six(06) Ministries/Divisions (Planning Division, Finance Division, National Assembly, Prime Minister Office, Scientific and Technological Research Division and Ministry of Information Technology) to roll-out e-Office Application. The said team prepares the user profiles along with digital certificates and also provides training to officers and supporting staff regarding electronic file movement. E-Office Team is also involved in hand-holding of officers to dispose off their day to day filing activities through e-Office Application. In the forthcoming week, the PCB would give a comprehensive briefing to senior management of MoIT on overall strategy to roll-out e-office suite at other Federal Ministries/Divisions.
He further informed that the successful implementation of e-Office Application will accomplish the present Government vision of ensuring efficiency, accuracy, effectiveness and good governance, transparency and accountability in decision making and delivery of efficient and cost-effective public service to citizens of Pakistan. MoIT and PCB are making all-out efforts to make it a success endeavor with in stipulated time period.