KARACHI: Despite having a history of political rivalry and differences over several issues at the national level, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government in Punjab has launched a computerisation project for Sindh police as a “goodwill gesture” that will save time and money of the Sindh government needed for police reforms, it emerged on Monday.

A senior official told Dawn that the project — featuring human resource management information system, police station record management information system, IG complaint management system and IT initiative of criminal record office — would have cost between Rs30 million and Rs40 million to the Pakistan Peoples Party-led Sindh government if it had awarded this project to any local or foreign company.

While the software programs have already been installed in computer systems, the personnel of Sindh police will start getting one-month training from the Punjab IT Board (PITB) by the end of September, according to the official.

Training on the cards, new system to be made functional next month

He said: “The Sindh police had actually initiated the project on its own but it could not work out due to different reasons. It was later found that the PITB had already done that kind of projects and it’s being run successfully.

“The Punjab government was then approached through the Sindh chief secretary and after multiple meetings and visits from both sides, the PITB agreed to extend its support.”He said the four projects were namely HRMIS (human resource management information system), PSRMIS (police station record management information system), IG complaint management system and IT initiative of CRO (criminal record office).

“The PITB is undertaking that without any cost as goodwill gesture. The financing is not an issue as such. The major benefit of this support is saving of our time as we would be operating this system next month which otherwise would have taken at least a year by other companies to put in place.”

The Sindh government for the year 2016-17 enhanced police budget from Rs63.3 billion to Rs73.9 billion, showing an increase of 16.9 per cent. This includes the schedule of new expenditure (SNE) allocation of Rs8.9 billion for various police reforms projects.

The official said the “goodwill gesture” was acknowledged by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah who during his recent visit to Lahore personally called on the PITB chief to extend his appreciation.

“The chief minister [Mr. Shah] accompanied by his delegates visited the PITB earlier this month,” said the official. “During meeting with PITB chairman Dr Umar Saif and his team, the CM appreciated the board for the efforts contributed to improve methods of governance. Thoroughly impressed by PITB’s technological ventures, the chief minister aspired to replicate and implement similar initiatives in Sindh. He lauded the PITB for assistance in digitising the Sindh Police.”

The official said the recent development could lead to further collaboration between the two provinces mainly in the IT areas in coming days, as the chief minister of Sindh had hinted at seeking further cooperation of the PITB to introduce some other projects in Sindh.

Published in Dawn September 13th, 2016