ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: The government has decided to establish a Rs501 million hi-tech border monitoring system to link up Pakistan’s 20 border entry and exit points with a centralized system.
To be called the Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (Pisces), the project is expected to be approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) on Sept 27.
The Pisces project will enable the linking of all the 20 entry/exit points under real time networking environment and provide smooth working coordination and standardisation among different law enforcement agencies in the area of immigration control.
In this connection, the system has provisions to accommodate information on suspects from all law-enforcement agencies like immigration, police, narcotics control, anti-smuggling and Intelligence services.
In future, the machine readable passport (MRP) project will be integrated with the Pisces project and the authenticity of travellers’ documents will also be checked with MRP database.
The main objective of the project is to enhance the capability of the Federal Investigation Agency to effectively prevent growing trafficking of effective check on illegal border crossing at all the 20 entry/exit points and prevention of suspects from entering into the country which is government’s top priority as an ally of the US war against terror.
The project will provide latest technology to immigration staff of the FIA to maintain record of all incoming and outgoing passengers so that all suspects be detected, and the data will be used for other secondary users.
The project has a foreign exchange component of Rs317 million ($5.3 million), mostly in the shape of equipment to be supplied by the US government. Five major points (all airports), viz Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta, have already been provided with Pisces facilities and remaining 15 points, including air, sea, land and railway routes, would be covered under the project.
An amount of Rs10 million was released for the project through anticipatory approval in October 2003. The project would be completed by September 2006. The facility will be operationally located in the existing accommodation.
According to statistical profile, the project will earn no income, generate employment for 124 persons, has no physical output and no economic rate of return or cost benefit ratio in the foreseeable future.
Originally, the project was only for Karachi airport but later the scope of work was expanded to cover all the 20 exit/entry points of the country.
The US government had asked Pakistan to bear the local cost of linking 20 entry/exit points. An expenditure of Rs317 million ($5.3 million) will be borne by the US government in the shape of Rs101 million worth of hardware, Rs179 million of software and Rs37 million of site preparation.
Pakistan will bear the cost of networking, office machinery, vehicles, establishment, repair and maintenance, communication, rent and royalties, utilities and other expenditure amounting to Rs184 million.
