Pakistan is making up for lost time by introducing a number of Information Technology (IT) initiatives to bridge the gap between communities to readily access information. However, this is not only limited to accessing information, but also provide a host of other opportunities to foster business activities, enable access to education and health services. In a new, the incumbent government has launched “Smart Village,” an initiative that has been facilitated by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications (MOIT&T) through Universal Service Fund. Let’s explore more about Pakistan’s Smart Village project.
Pakistan’s Smart Village Initiative
The MOIT&T has launched Smart Village which is a project which will be introduced in four provinces of Pakistan, as well as Islamabad Capital Territory and Gilgit-Baltistan. This project is primarily aimed at enhancing access of Pakistan’s remotest areas to modern facilities and to train them to access these facilities easily.
The mechanism of Smart Village is pretty simple. The Smart Village will essentially have training centers in provinces’ and territories’ remotest areas to provide free-of-cost training to the youth. These trainings will be provided in the domains of health, education, and commerce; all facets of creating opportunities so the livelihoods of people can be significantly improved.
This is the latest initiative of the government’s Digital Pakistan Vision that will ensure increased collaboration between various sectors, stakeholders, and government departments with the citizens of different areas. The aim of the project is to introduce citizens’ access to these facilities in the digital realm to improve cost-effectiveness and facilitate efficient use of resources. As this is a project under the government’s Digital Pakistan Vision, the citizens will have access to a host of other mobile applications and services that have been introduced under this initiative.
This is a project of the MOIT&T in collaboration with Universal Service Fund (USF), which has partnered with Southeast Asia International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Huawei. This is one of the 30 mobile applications, government web portals, and websites related to public services that have been launched so far.
Smart Initiatives Introduced By GoP
Pakistan’s Smart Village Initiative is the latest addition to the numerous smart initiatives introduced by the incumbent government as it makes steady progress towards exploiting opportunities in the digital realm.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has taken a key interest in improving Pakistan’s digital economy. For this reason, a number of electronic money institutions have been recently introduced. The SBP is working round the clock to ensure licenses are given to private mobile application designers so money transferring can be made much easier, especially as during the fiscal year 2020-2021, exports remittances from IT and IT-enabled Services (ITeS) grew by 46% to reach USD 1.7 billion, compared with USD 1.17 billion during the same period of 2019-2020. In order to maintain this upward trajectory, Digital Pakistan has introduced Raast, which is the country’s first digital payment system.
As Prime Minister Imran Khan has always labeled overseas Pakistanis the backbone of Pakistan’s economy, under Roshan Digital Accounts, initiatives such as Roshan Apni Car and Roshan Samaaji Khidmat have also been introduced that will allow expatriates to make direct investments.
By far the most inclusive digital program has been Ehsaas Saving Wallets, which is aimed at increasing financial inclusion of financially-isolated classes of Pakistan. This initiative provides an opportunity to the less privileged citizens of the country to have a bank account under the government-initiated scheme and be able to timely avail any opportunity of investing their funds.
Similar to Smart Village, the provincial governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab have also introduced Digital KP 2020 Policy and Khidmat Aapke Dehleez Per, respectively. While the former is linked with improving digital governance, the latter will improve districts’ municipal facilities in favor of the citizens.
In education too, the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) has introduced HEC e-library services. This is a revolutionary initiative for providing e-educational services to the people of Pakistan, and has been a welcome move especially in light of the covid-19 pandemic.
When we talk of enhancing the digital penetration in Pakistan, the biggest challenge to date remains for the real estate sector. In Islamabad, an online registration system for tenants has been introduced, whereas if you want to check for ownership of properties in any province, you can check data online as well.
This is all about all the smart initiatives by the incumbent government, so far. We will keep updating you on the latest developments, and you can access all this information on Pakistan’s best property blog, Zameen Blog. You can also have your queries addressed by emailing us at blog@zameen.com.
