ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday directed the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and the Ministry of Information and Technology to develop a dashboard in order to monitor the daily activities of the economy in the country and to promote the innovative projects of national importance under the Innovation Support Fund (ISF) to be launched soon.
The minister made these directions while chairing a meeting for the development of the National Integrated Dashboard and ISF at P-Block Secretariat on Tuesday.
The meeting was attended by the secretary Planning Commission, additional secretary, members, and representatives from various ministries.
There is no integrated dashboard where economic management could be monitored particularly of key ministries such as Finance, said the minister, while directing the concerned ministries and the PBS to develop a dashboard so on a daily basis the economic situation of the country could be monitored which will help the policymakers to make a policy.
The minister said that data is the key in the current era and there should be a dashboard at two levels, one for top leadership and the second, for the secretary’s level so every ministry could monitor the economic indicators. There is a bulk of data hidden in the government’s departments but we should have a system to utilise it, said the minister, while stressing for a system analyst to work on a dashboard and conduct need assessment in public sectors.
The minister said that there should be a data policy, as well. The secretary Ministry of IT informed that it is already working on the policy and it will take a few months to finalise it. The minister directed the IT Ministry to give a briefing next week.
During the meeting, the minister also directed officials of the Planning Commission to hold a roundtable conference to promote innovative projects of national importance under the ISF project. “We should recognize innovation as a tool to achieve maximum productivity and efficiency in agriculture, health, education and other sectors,” said the minister while directing officials to invite people from various fields such as industry, academia, the Higher Education Commission (HEC), IT, Chamber of Commerce, and others in order to launch encourage the innovators under the project.
Moreover, the minister also reviewed the progress of 20 poor districts which were targeted for development. The minister directed the concerned stakeholders to complete the need assessment and survey of the district so the development process could be started immediately.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022