The Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) has made the current wheat procurement at 376 government procurement centres efficient and transparent across the province. Board Chairman Doctor Umar Saif claimed on Friday that his board had developed a smartphone application for the Punjab Food Department enabling digitisation of the farmers' data approaching procurement centres to sell their wheat crop.
He said the application was saving record of Bardana (bags) to the farmers and the wheat procured at daily basis that could be accessed by the higher authorities too. "The application also enables farmers to send their feedback regarding their experience at the govt procurement centre whether it be unwanted behaviour of personnel, illegitimate demands, bribe or any kind of malpractices." The name, National Identity Card number and mobile phone number of the farmers were collected in main dash board being controlled by the PITB, he said.
"Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif contacts those numbers through robocall and takes feedback from the wheat sellers. Around 0.2 million robocalls have so far been made out during this season out of which more than 9,000 farmers complained while 30,000 expressed their satisfaction about the procurement system. The complaints are referred to the Food Department for further necessary action," he added.
Dr Saif revealed that 2.5 million metric tonnes wheat had so far been procured against a target of four million metric tonnes across 35 districts of the Punjab and that the technology was playing its significant role in facilitating the common man either living in urban or rural area. "The technology has brought a big change in form of saving the illiterate, desperate and poor farmers from tactics of Patwari and Food Inspector who devoured a part of their produce up through bribes or commission. The credit goes to the CM Punjab who desires to bring transparency, accountability and efficiency in the governance system of Punjab," he added.
Comments
Comments are closed.