PESHAWAR, Jan 23: The NWFP government is expected to replicate the model of the Mardan district government's recently established district citizen information centre (DCIC) to the remaining 23 districts , to create a comprehensive information hub at the provincial level, and for effective planning and monitoring at the grass roots level.

Established under a pilot project with the support by Unicef, Mardan's DCIC contains a database for storage and retrieval of data on important socio-economic indicators, geographic information system, administrative set up of the district, human resources, social and economic profiles of the district, population, institutions and issues relating to child rights and protection.

The essential institutional reforms project (EIROP), said the sources, was supposed to replicate the model of Mardan's DCIC to other districts of the province to develop an integrated system of information on social and economic indicators, district level programmes and projects of the government and other agencies.

Besides, district planners, managers and stakeholders would be better placed to assess sectoral development requirements of their area concerned and plan future strategies in the right direction to ensure best utilisation of financial resources.

"As the EIROP is close to be phased out upon the completion of its term shortly, it has yet to be decided as to which other organisation or department of the provincial government would be handed over the responsibility to supervise establishment of DCICs in the remaining districts - given that the foreign funded EIROP is not given extension," said a development planner.

Meanwhile, it was learnt that the Kohat district government had also undertaken a similar initiative, on its own, to set up a DCIC, added the source, and Unicef was also extending technical support to it.

The need to set up DCICs at all the district headquarters was necessitated by the absence of sufficient and reliable statistics and information for needs-based decision making at policy, planning and management levels.

Official sources said that none of the information systems presently functional in the province could give a clear picture to the optimal level, resulting in non-useful and ineffective planning which caused a wastage of scarce funds, and over-lapping of activities.

On the one hand it would provide information to the government functionaries and elected representatives to make appropriate decisions for the new development schemes and projects. On the other, it would enable the public's access to the information base empowering the communities and citizens with the knowledge of critical socio-economic conditions.

"It would ensure involvement of citizens and communities in the process of development planning at the grass roots level," said the officer, adding that "the information system has been designed to correlate information and spread across various departments working at provincial, district, tehsil and union council levels".

Official sources said that a meeting scheduled for Saturday at Mardan would discuss issues relating to the formal taking over of Mardan's DCIC by EIROP from Unicef.

Two options were under consideration vis-a-vis functioning of the Mardan DCIC in future. The Mardan district government had moved the finance department, NWFP, for sanctioning the creation of three posts to keep the DCIC operation.