PESHAWAR: The Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) launched here on Tuesday the country’s first ever cell-phone-based application to let people track budget allocations for different sectors.

Raja Shoaib, CPDI’s programme manager for budget watch programme, told Dawn at the launch of the ‘Budget Tracker’ mobile application that it was the first ever effort to bring information about annual budget into the hands of the citizens.

“It is a unique application. This is the best tool available to provide information about all provinces’ budget to the people. It is all in their hands now,” he said.

He said since budget was in English language so the application was also in English, but once this effort was successful they could think of bringing in such information in other local languages spoken across the country to spread information as well as make people aware of budgetary allocations in different sectors.

CPDI’s provincial coordinator Shamsul Hadi said the application could be downloaded from app store on any android or smartphone free of cost. He said it provided people with all the information they wanted to search regarding budget. There was also option for search, comment and like or dislike with this application, he added.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2017