Finance Ministry will propose ''Digitization of Pakistan Economic Survey'' project in next fiscal year (2018-19) Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) to establish reliable data fiscal, external and real sectors of the economy.
Sources said that objectives of the proposed Rs 40 million project in the PSDP by Economic Advisor Wing of the ministry are to set reliable data base of real, fiscal, internal and external sectors of the economy and make timely availability of data of federal and provincial governments as well as departments to end users through improved government service delivery and economic management.
The project also aimed at preserving data published in previous Economic Surveys and create subject-wise links of time series data as well as to prepare overall picture of economic progress and analyze the economic journey of the country since independence and to disseminate all the government approved economic and financial relevant material contained in the Economic Surveys for use at large by academia/ media. The Finance Ministry wants to strengthen and revamp institutional capacity of Economic Adviser Wing to collect, manage, computerize, retrieve, analyze and generate economic data for use of policy planners, researchers and academia by implementing the project.
Sources said the project has been proposed in the Finance Division PSDP portfolio for fiscal year 2018-19 with actual date of commencement July 2018 and completion date, as per PC-I, is June 2021. An official said that the project is likely to be finalized during the five days priorities committee meetings being held from April 2-6 to discuss and approve recurrent and development budget of ministries and autonomous bodies.
The priorities committee meetings, according to the Finance Division letter dated March 30, 2018, will be co-chaired by Secretary Finance, Secretary Planning, Development and Reforms and Secretary Economic Affairs Division. While talking about benefits on completion of the project, sources stated that it will support Economic Adviser''s Wing to improve its output and provide sound data/ information about economic and social sectors.