LAHORE, March 14: The planning and development board chairman is learnt to have asked the information technology department secretary to amend the PC-1s of its seven projects which were objected to by his own additional and deputy secretaries and the information technology board chairman.
Sources said here on Thursday that the P&D chairman had asked for the amendments after meeting the aggrieved deputy secretary Tauqeer Qureshi and Punjab Information Technology Board chairman Dr Humayun Mushtaq Mian independent of the Information Technology Department Secretary Saeed Alvi on Wednesday.
The chairman had also reportedly asked Dr Mian to rehash the PC-1s in the light of his objections and proposals and give them to the information technology department for presentation to the authorities concerned for approval.
Meanwhile, Mr Qureshi who had tendered his resignation allegedly after having differences with Mr Alvi over the PC-1s had been transferred to his parent environmental protection department on the request of the latter.
The PC-1s were to be presented before a special meeting of the Provincial Development Working Party (PDWP) on Monday but it was also ‘deferred’ because of what the sources claimed the controversy about the very first projects of the e-government which the government wanted to be established at the earliest.
Mr Alvi said the meeting was postponed merely because of the absence of the provincial finance secretary, who is an important member of the PDWP. It would now be held immediately after Ashura, he said.
The sources said the P&D chairman’s meeting with Mr Qureshi and Dr Mian was also attended by Finance Secretary Salman Siddique and P&D Secretary Javed Aslam. It lasted for over four hours during which Mr Qureshi and Dr Mian listed their technical and management related objections to the PC-1s.
“Many objections were considered as valid and that is why Mr Alvi has been asked to make certain amendments,” the sources said. They claimed that the alternative proposals given in detail by Mr Qureshi and Dr Mian reduced the cost of the estimated Rs400 million PC-1s by 30 per cent and that was why the P&D chairman gave weight to them.
According to the sources, the two officials also pointed out that besides technical faults, the PC-1s did not contain the basic element of the project management which was noted.
When contacted, Mr Alvi said the meeting between the P&D chairman and Mr Qureshi and Dr Mian was un-official but he admitted that he had been sent proposals regarding the changes in the PC-1s.
These suggestions would enhance the cost of the projects, he said.
The PC-1s had been prepared as a first step towards the e-government for which the federal government was providing millions of rupees to the provincial governments. It had sanctioned Rs500 million for all provinces for the current year out of which the Punjab was to get Rs250 million.
The PC-1s were about computerization of land revenue record in 10 districts, settlement record and registration deeds in six districts, and arms licenses, creation of the Punjab intra-net network and a model information technology district (Sialkot) and computerized domicile certificates in six districts.
The information technology department had already decided to drop the idea of issuing computerized domicile certificates in view of objections from different quarters, reducing the cost of the project by over Rs10 million.