LAHORE, Aug 20: The Punjab governor has reportedly approved the shifting of Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) from the administrative control of the Information Technology Department to the Planning and Development Department.

A notification in this regard is expected to be issued in a couple of days.

The decision has reportedly been taken to allow the board to freely assess and evaluate the projects prepared by the IT department and recommend funding by the P&D because “an examiner cannot be a subordinate”.

It is also learnt that the PITB had developed software standards on the federal government’s request to promote e-governance in the country. After the preparation of the software standards, the officials of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) had said that the standards would be implemented all over the country and every IT project PC-1 approved should conform to the software standards. The MoST also asked the other three provinces to set up IT boards.

The Punjab IT department reportedly did not follow the software standards and sent its projects for approval by the P&D which were rejected.

Officials claimed that in the meanwhile, the IT department secretary wrote a letter to the MoST that it should not directly contact the PITB but the IT department. The ministry officials also reportedly wrote to the Punjab governor about the tussle.

In the new set-up, the PITB will act as a consultative body to review the PC-1 of all IT projects before approval by the P&D.