Online system for contractors launched in K-P

K-P CM Mahmood directs public health, irrigation and local govt depts to adopt the platform

PESHAWAR: In a week when the country presented its national digital vision of the future and a policy for that, the first-ever e-registration system for government contractors in the province was launched on Sunday. The system will allow contractors to register with the government and will be forward integrated into other e-governance platforms the government is developing.

The system was launched by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on Sunday at the Chief Minister Secretariat in Peshawar. The registration platform has been developed by the K-P Communications and Works Department (C&WD).

While launching the system, Mahmood said that this was unique for the country as no such system existed before.

However, he noted that the success of the new system depends on its quick and extensive adoption and directed other departments of the province, particularly the public health engineering, irrigation and local government to adopt the mechanism in consultation with the C&W Department.

Moreover, for tangible deliverable of the system, he directed to launch the E-Work platform in the next phase which will integrate the E-registration system and the database it creates.

“The government of K-P has taken the lead over other provinces in terms of e-governance,” Mahmood said, adding that as many as 7,000 contractors in the province stand to benefit from the system. The online registration facility will be available around the clock and throughout the week. He hoped that the system will bring the province closer to realising the dream of E-governance.

The use of modern technology is obligatory to meet the challenges of the modern era.

“This is the only way through which we can achieve our targets on socio-economic development and prosperity,” Mahmood stated.

Earlier, K-P C&W Minister Akbar Ayub Khan briefed the chief minister about the e-registration platform. He added that the system had been created in accordance with the demands of the Pakistan Engineering Council to develop an easy and uncomplicated mechanism for e-registration of contractors and firms.

Before the development of the platform, Akbar said that around 12 to 15 departments manually processed registrations of certified vendors and contractors separately. As a result, the process was tedious, cumbersome and took a long time to complete.

Now, the registration of contractors through the platform will be managed by the C&W Department and it is expected to take much less time to complete.

He further said that while other provincial departments have only just started E-tendering facilities, their department has already progressed to the E-bidding and E-billing phases.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2019.