Police to try paperless work environment

Punjab IT board has prepared, installed software in Ops DG’s office

LAHORE: In an attempt to reform policing and bring it along the tech-driven modern times, the police department in Lahore has launched a pilot project to introduce a paperless work environment at the office of the police department.

Operations DIG Dr Haider Ashraf, whose office would be the first to run the project as an experiment, said the initiative would be replicated at all the offices of Lahore police.



The software for the project has been prepared by Punjab Information and Technology Board (PITB) and has been installed at the Ops DG office. The officials and officers concerned have been issued email addresses and logins and would communicate all office matters through emails.

Appreciating the step, Haider said the initiative was unique throughout the history of Pakistani police as a paper-free work environment has never been introduced before. The project would contribute in improving efficiency, transparency and accountability as well as reduce communicating time, he said.

“Sometimes, official communication between two officers who sit in adjoining rooms take hours and even days. After the paper-free environment, that time will be reduced to a single click,” he said.

He added that the project will also help curb bureaucratic bottlenecks as the staff sometimes uses delaying tactics such as ‘misplaced files’ for their vested interests.



“History, context or background of a matter even a few months or years old is termed archive in the manual system and that contributes to hiding or manipulating facts in official work,” he explained. “An office management driven through IT will do away with all these problems as everything could be done with a single click.”

“Any officer or official concerned will be able to access any information while sitting at his office. It will also help curb corruption as during manual system, an official sometimes might exploit the situation and force the stakeholder to offer bribe to expedite the process,” he added.

The policeman said that the project is part of the policy, vision and effort to change thana culture through information technology.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2017.