The provincial government aims to set up a Peshawar Digital Complex in the provincial capital as a digital future of the province with digitised land records, centralised portals and cybersecurity response per an integrated digital policy.

This was disclosed by the Special Assistant to the Chief Minister on Science and Information Technology (IT) Kamran Bangash while presenting the annual performance report of the department in a news briefing at the ‘Itla Cell’ (Information Cell) of Information and Public Relations Department on Wednesday.

Bangash said that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa was the first province to present its ‘Digital Policy’. Under the policy, he said that they will set up the first digital complex of the province in the provincial capital. Subsequently, the second such complex will be set up in Abbottabad.

Paperwork for the complex has begun while an IT university will also be set up in the province. Providing an update on the land record digitisation process, Bangash said that records for 80 villages have been converted while work on records of seven districts is underway. He, however, conceded that they were struggling to complete the task by next June 2020.

But once complete, Bangash said that they will be able to get rid of the patwari (Land revenue officer) mafia. Briefing the media on the establishment of the Citizen Facilitation Centers (CFC), Bangash said that it will offer 20 different services under a single roof.

‘The citizen facilitation centres will be set up in all divisions including Peshawar by March 2020,” he said.

On digitising the provincial police force, the special assistant said that they have introduced an information ‘Itla’ portal in the Malakand division where citizens can file complaints online.

“We will extend this portal to other areas in the next phase,” he said.

To improve digital understanding amongst the population of the province, Bangash said that they have launched the Early Age Programming project to promote science and IT at the grassroots level.

“Through the Early Age Programming project, we trained public school students, who have brought pride to the province by securing national and international awards,” he said, adding that some 17,000 children had been trained across the province in the first phase of the project. In the second phase, another 10,000 students will be trained.

Further, he said that the K-P IT Board (K-PITB) is planning youth training on data sciences and cloud computing.

To improve the performance of the board, Bangash said that the government is working on necessary legislation. Constitutional drafts for the purpose are in the final stages, he said.

Terming cybersecurity a global challenge, the special assistant on IT said that they were setting up the first-ever cyber emergency and response centre of the country which sends digital security alerts to all government departments apart from offering training.

With the province struggling with different testing services as it attempts to route all hiring per standardised testing to ensure merit, Bangash said that they have developed a computer-based mechanism called ‘Imtekhan’, which will help address all flaws in the written exams.

The special assistant that a Pakistan Business Process Outsourcing project has been initiated to promote industries. In the first phase, 700 youngsters will be trained under the project while a total of 6,000 youth will be provided modern training by 2023.

With the department the main science body of the province, Bangash said that that they have set up instruments in eight different locations across Peshawar to monitor air quality in the city.

As part of the Connect K-P Project, he said that 25-degree colleges, including Shalimar Bagh, University of Peshawar and the Peshawar Press Club are being provided with free internet facility.

A Creative Festival will also be held in the province next month.