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Home > About Pakistan.Gov
About Pakistan.Gov
Introduction
Background and History
Vision & Objectives
Brief Description of the Project
Functional Capabilities of Portal
Scope of Services
The updating of information placed on the Portal
Benefits of the Project
Introduction
Pakistan.Gov is the official portal web site for the Government of Pakistan and acts as a gateway for providing government information and services through the Internet. It is primarily intended to act as a complimentary channel for citizens, non-citizens and businesses dealing with the Government.
Pakistan.Gov is maintained by the Electronic Government Project Directorate (EGPD) which is based at the Information Technology Commission Secretariat.
Background and History
One of the main objectives of the electronic government programme prepared by the IT & Telecom Division is to improve delivery of services to citizens. In line with this objective, the Citizen Online project was approved in October 2001 for the purpose of:
- Providing government information to the public through a government portal
- Ensuring online availability and submission of all forms of the government
- Ensuring Online availability of information on jobs, tenders, official gazette notifications etc. for the convenience of the public
- Ensuring transparency in government-public interactions
The existing web sites of the Government of Pakistan have not been able to achieve the objective of government-citizen interaction and represent an image of incoherent collection of information and activities. Web sites have been developed by some ministries / divisions and deployed at various web sites inside and outside Pakistan. Additionally, these web sites have been developed by involving IT professionals but with little or no interaction with the end-users within the government or the general public. The process of updating and linking web sites has been independently done without regard to relevance of information. There is no single owner of the process of management of government web sites.
Some of the drawbacks of existing web sites of government agencies are:
- Absence of any coordination between government organizations in development and deployment of web sites
- Inconsistency of information on same subject
- No proper process for updating of web sites
- No process of frequency of updates of web sites
- No specific hosting site for government web sites
- No security incorporated in existing web sites
- None of the existing web sites have the capability for information and financial transactions
- Lack of citizen focus: There is a lack of focus on the information and services requirements of the general public, who are ultimately the customers of the government services
Vision & Objectives
The goal of the GOP Information & Services Portal is to use information and communications technologies to provide better government services and information electronically. The following were the objectives set out for the project:
- Initially, all available online services and information relevant to the public to be made accessible via the portal.
- Progressively, all services and information that can be made available online be made accessible through the portal.
- The portal design has to be citizen-centric.
- The portal design has to reflect Pakistani culture and heritage.
- It should provide a complementary channel for citizens dealing with the government.
- It should be accessible via commonly used world-wide-web search engines.
- It should be available 24 hrs per day, seven days a week.
Brief Description of the Project
In order to enable convenient citizen and public sector interaction, Internet is a key medium for all E-Government initiatives around the world. This project focuses on a similar initiative. This is the face of the government to the world. At stake will be the image and reputation of the Government in general and Pakistan as a state in particular. Quality and value of information to the citizens and visitors to web sites will be the denominator to benchmark the integrity of this project.
The project involves development of the first-ever web Information & Services Portal for the Government of Pakistan with which web sites of different federal Ministries/Divisions will be integrated so that a single point of access is available to citizens with a strong search facility for different types of information on the portal.
In addition, websites will be made for the Ministries / Divisions (35 divisions) of the Federal Government of Pakistan. These sites will contain useful information for all potential users, both domestic and international. The information contained will include organizational details, rules and procedures, contact persons and their email, downloadable forms and data of interest to the general public. Citizens will be able to access the individual web sites or get required services from the central portal to which all the web sites will be linked. Thus if a citizen is interested only in a particular service and does not want to or does not need to know which ministry/division to contact then he can access the central portal only which would list the available services.
A structured arrangement will be made in each Division for regular updating of the web sites to host all new tender/job notices, latest official gazette notifications, press releases, changes in policies and other news items that need to be highlighted.
The project will entail conceptualization, planning, designing, developing, hosting and maintaining the web site which should also include acceptance of queries and searching relevant databases for customized information. The existing web sites will be upgraded and standardized to ensure that they are capable of leading to the next three stages viz. Interactive Information, Information Transaction and Integrated & Interactive Operations.
In addition to the web sites for 35 divisions four special purpose web sites have been developed. These sites will be for:
- Educational institutions locator
- Haj and Umra
- Official forms of the government
- Quaid-i-Azam
The site on Educational Institutions of Pakistan is a gateway for comprehensive information pertaining to admission policy and forms, examination schedules and forms, course syllabus, time table for semester / year etc; in short a prospectus of the institution. The plan is to cover universities, professional colleges and degree awarding institutions during the project. Subsequently, intermediate colleges and selected schools will be added. During the life of the project an estimated 600 institutions will be hosted or linked through the web site. Additionally, private institutions will be encouraged to link to this web site which will enhance the coverage of educational institutions of Pakistan on the world wide web.
The web site on Haj & Umra hosts information on free services, schedules, travel formalities, documents pertaining to performance of haj and umra (including multimedia films).
The web site for Official Forms of the Federal Government hosts all forms used by the government or it's own internal use as well as for those used buy citizens. There are a total of 3,498 forms which will be redesigned to fit A4 paper size and will be printable by end-users.
The site on Quaid-i-Azam is intended to give viewers a comprehensive source of information on the founder of the country.
Functional Capabilities of Portal
Based on the vision and objectives identified above, the portal will have the following functional capabilities:
- Citizens will be able to easily find information and services through a well-developed menu structure and sophisticated, easy-to-use, advanced search facility.
- The portal has been designed using latest, industry-standard web technologies, with the concept that ultimately it will be a fully interactive web site capable of handling on-line processing and financial transactions.
- It should ultimately be e-commerce enabled.
- The portal willenable convenient, low cost, high value, reliable and high quality services to the citizens.
- It will build an image of Pakistan as a modern state that is an attractive location for people and businesses.
- It will make it easier for citizens to participate in government working, if they desire to do so.
- The information and services content has been integrated, packaged and presented in a manner that minimises cost to the government and the citizen who is accessing it.
- The portal, ultimately wil be capable of being accessed via a variety of channels, e.g. PCs, Kiosks, WAP phones and Web TV.
- The portal design should provide acceptable performance. The design is simple, with minimum graphics.
- The portal does not duplicate information available on other government or non-government web sites, but providee links to it.
- The portal complies with international web standards.
- It provides online FAQs.
- It provides an effective complaints resolution process to end-users.
- It is capable of personalised service delivery.
- It provides a framework for cross-departmental / cross-agency service delivery.
Scope of Services
In order to implement this project, a Lead Firm and seven implementing IT firms have been engaged after completing all codal formalities and it has completed activities leading up to hosting stage. The various activities performed between them are as follows:
- Design and development of the GOP portal and development of standard templates to be followed for other GOP web sites, with the concept that this will be a highly interactive and dynamic portal, linking all the individual web sites of the divisions and concentrating on services requirements of the citizens.
- Development of guide lines for the use, management and design of public sector websites. These standards will be subsequently followed by other implementing IT companies who will be selected for development of other GOP web sites.
- Assisting EGD in soliciting public opinion on contents and services requirements for the GOP portal. Thereafter to help EGD in sifting and structuring the information received from different divisions as well as public response to advertisement on the subject.
- Provide training to approx. 150 people in the 35 Divisions in web maintenance and updating
- Identification of the core skills set required at EGD for implementation and post implementation support, assist in hiring of the staff and to train the staff.
The division of roles between the lead and other firms is as follows:
Role of Lead Firm: The role of the Lead Firm will be as follows:
- Portal Architecture design, development and documentation
- Project Management Plan
- Skills analysis and transfer Plan for maintenance of individual ministry/division web sites during the post implementation period
- Standards Documents: The following documents are required to be delivered by the end date of the project:
- Web Standards and Guidelines
- Metadata standards and guidelines
- Internet usage guidelines for government personnel
- Electronic Records Management Guidelines
- Data Management Guidelines
- Information Privacy Framework and Guidelines
- Information Security Framework and Guidelines
- Preparation of RFPs/RFQs for development of the individual ministry/division web sites. This work will be carried out by other IT companies.
- Integration & Testing Plan for the web sites to be developed by other implementing IT firms
- Proposal for post-implementation structure.
Role of Implementing IT Firms: The role of the implementing service providers (IT firms) will be to perform the following tasks:
- Design and develop the web sites
- Upload the contents
- Establish process for web site updating in liaison with relevant ministry / division
- Train the government employees in design, development, deployment, maintenance and operations of the web sites.
- Assistance in updation for six months
For achieving smooth implementation of the project, the resource persons nominated by each ministry / division will be the focal point of contact. These resource persons will be responsible for providing the information required to be posted in a standard format.
The updating of information placed on the Portal
The significance of regular updating of information placed on the Portal needs no emphasis. Most of the existing websites are deficient in this respect. In order to overcome this drawback, a structural arrangement is being made at each federal Division so as to bring all the latest developments on their web sites, e.g. latest tender/job/scholarship notices, latest notification on publications in official gazettes, changes in forms, press releases and other news that needs highlighting.
Benefits of the Project
The benefits of the project are:
- Enhance the Government of Pakistan's image in the eyes of the citizen and foreign investors
- Information dissemination to the citizens and strengthen the relationship between people and the state through greater participation
- Increase collaboration between government organizations and ensure consistency in government communications
- Reduce the interaction time of government employees with citizens and yet be productive in delivering service to the citizen
- Create an IT aware culture in government employees
- Transfer of technology and skills for independently operating the project after the implementing service provider departs from the project
- Opportunity for local software companies to earn revenues and grow business in Pakistan and thereby fulfilling the commitment of the government to support the local software industry.
Related Links
Electronic Government Directorate
Information Technology and Telecommunications Division
Ministry of Information Technology
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