LAHORE, June 2: The federal information technology ministry is set to launch within a couple of months mobile phone banking concept that will facilitate consumers in payment of their phone, electricity, gas and even restaurant bills as well as tip to waiters.

“The new mobile phone bank accounts will be made available to the public within three to four months. And the service, being worked out with the State Bank of Pakistan, will multiply the base of bank account holders in the country,” Federal Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari said at the inaugural ceremony of the PRGMEA/PHMA ERP under the Pakistan Software Export Board’s Industrial Automation Project at a local hotel on Saturday.

He said the concept would convert consumers’ mobile phones into bank accounts. “This initiative will surely improve the quality of life of consumers.”

Besides, he said, the IT ministry was also going to launch broadband revolution to provide fast internet connectivity services at every home and office in 40 major cities in the country within four to six months. The project would be executed by the private sector, he added.

Any household or office that would require broadband connectivity in cities having a population of more than 200,000 people would get the connection at very cheap rates, he said, adding that the project would also promote computer use.

Mr Leghari said the IT ministry had been automated and all the files were being processed in computerised formats. He said he had faced strong resistance from the bureaucracy when he began the automation project, but now the ministry was planning to automate other departments in phases to bring about transparency in their working.

The ministry, he said, had invested approximately Rs60 million in automating the local industry. In the first phase, he said, 63 small units were automated across different industrial sectors using licensed ERP software. In the current phase, he said, some 60 SME units in five industrial sectors were being automated using open source software.

Earlier, the PSEB signed two memoranda of understanding — one between the Pakistan Readymade Garments and Manufacturers Association and the SME Business Support Fund, and the other between the Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association and the SME BSF.

APP adds: PSEB MD Yusuf Husain said the board initiated development of the ERP software through its Industrial Automation Project worth Rs70 million to improve productivity of SME units in the sectors with high export potential.

He said with the emergence of the WTO, the ERP software would enable these SME units to compete at the global level. The software would be implemented in more than 60 industrial units in five sectors and would then be made available free of cost to over 1,500 units.