K-P, Punjab IT boards ink cooperation deal

Accord will help avoid duplication of efforts

PESHAWAR: Despite individual incidents of cooperation in the past and an intertwined past, the chief provincial information technology body and its Punjab counterpart on Friday signed a formal agreement for cooperation.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board (KPITB) Chairman Dr Shahbaz Khan and the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) Chairman Azfar Manzoor signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Friday. Special Assistant to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Kamran Bangash oversaw the landmark signing ceremony along with several high-ranking officers from both provinces.

The MoU will allow both boards to benefit from each other’s experiences and learn from the other’s innovation. Further, the agreement will help avoid duplication of efforts and thus improve output and save time and energies.

Bangash said that K-P has adopted information technology in several government functions which has helped make the working of different government organisations efficient apart from introducing transparency and taking prompt and informed decisions.

As an example, Bangash said that in the K-P Assembly, members were initially reluctant to use the digital dashboard, but now each member uses it to pose questions in the assembly. The same principle, he said, can be extended to almost all government functions and interactions with the public.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2019.