The PTI-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government prepared three-year Master Plan for Information & Communication Technology (ICT) that will cover five components including government, citizens, businesses, academia and research.
Under the plan, the provincial government will invest an amount of Rs 6.90 billion in governance, citizen services, business, ICT literacy and Research & Development.
The policy has defied objectives, interventions and expected outcomes for each component. The purpose of the KP ICT Master Plan is to identify how the interventions need to be phases and what they are likely to cost. The policy will provide a roadmap for decision makers to identifying, selecting and funding investment in ICT sector to achieve the goal of-leveraging ICT for improving government productivity and transparency and providing citizens with a new standard of service delivery.
Interventions, under the policy have been phased in short, medium and long terms while budgeting has been classified into low, medium and high.
The government is committed to delivering successful results in the ICT sector and to maximise its productivity and optimise the utilisation of its resources, the government will implement a single enterprise model to consolidate its infrastructure. Reduction in duplication and complexity under the plan aims to achieve cost effectiveness, continuity and enhance information security.
The use of ICT by government will help achieve greater interaction with citizens and define the intention of the government in taking advantage of pervasive connectivity and mobility to deliver key government services to citizens.
The government will create a central directory of government services for citizens and establish departmental and interdepartmental targets for computerising most of frequently used services.
Under the service delivery plan for citizens services, the government will prioritise the computerisation of government services based on the potential for improved revenue collection, frequency use by citizens, reduction of service time, reduction of end user effort and reduction in service delivery costs.
An online provincial web portal will also be developed and maintain to provide information about provincial departments working, schemes, news, notices, grievances, handling, publication and performance. Public internet kiosks across the province will be installed to provide one window to services, develop mobile applications to provide information and transactional capabilities to citizens for the most commonly used services and promote the use of national and local languages in the ICT sector.
Under the component of business, the government will develop software technology parks and other enabling infrastructure in the province to facilitate and encourage greater local and foreign investment, use direct stimuli to attract investment to them.
The provincial government will also help offer special incentives for major international ICT firms for setting up development and support facilities in the province while under the ICT skill development program the government will offer development programs to companies for building business and technical capabilities to enhance their productivity and competitiveness.
An incubation fund will be created for promoting new business by IT graduates and they will be facilitated to participate in small and medium ICT sector projections of the government.
In interventions under ICT literacy for developing ICT capabilities, knowledge, skills of the provincial workforce to support and sustain a movement towards knowledge based economy will maintain close co-ordination with academia and industry to achieve sustainable long term goals.
For the achievement of the sustainable long term goals, the government interventions will be included the establishment Digital Content Fund, content e-Delivery, updating of ICT Curriculum, Digital Libraries, conducting skill development programs at all educational levels for ICT teachers, develop distance learning, specialised professional training programs, support for establishing IT incubation labs, ICT internships, ICT scholarships and ICT scholarship and internship programs for women to encourage their joining of ICT sector.
Under the component of Research and Development, the provincial government will fund and stimulate research in areas that will lead to improvement in utilisation of ICT and creation of new economic opportunities. The research will also help in increasing the effectiveness of existing and planned ICT programs and increase competitiveness of the local ICT businesses.
For the achievement of these goals the provincial government will establish ICT R&D Fund for conducting research to enhance productivity and improve delivery of citizen services, support ICT Centres of Excellence, academic events, competitions and conferences in academia for encouraging ICT knowledge sharing and research, ICT conferences and ICT resources.
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