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PITB’s Complaints Management for Overseas Pakistanis Receives 7,814 Complaints

Lahore, February 20, 2018 (PPI-OT): The Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB)’s project in collaboration with the Overseas Pakistanis Commission (OPC) is satisfactorily redressing the overseas Pakistanis complaints being faced by them in various inland departments through an online complaint portal developed for effective communication in the shortest time. Dr. Umar Saif Chairman PITB said while chairing a progress review meeting here today. The meeting was informed that so far a number of 7,814 complaints have been received and among them 3,579 have been resolved while remaining were under process and 132 have been rejected.

The setting up the online portal has decreased workload and made the complaints tracking process easier, which was facilitating the labor force in the middle-east countries who couldn’t access the online portal, by enabling them to call the helpline +92 42-111-672-672, which runs parallel to the Overseas Complaint Portal. The OPC call representative enters all the information into the system on behalf of a user, briefed the meeting.

The meeting was informed that during the last two weeks Overseas Pakistanis Commission (OPC) Punjab retrieved 17 Properties of expatriate Pakistanis, worth Rs.93.3 Million from the illegal occupants in Lahore, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Narowal, Pakpattan, Jhelum, Sahiwal, Okara, Toba Tek Singh Mandi Baha Ud Din and Jhang Districts. An expatriate Pakistani Muhammad Shoaib, settled in UK succeeded in getting back his 142 million rupees in response to his complaint that he paid Rs 142 million in 2015 to a party for the sake of investment and according to the agreement the other party was supposed to pay profit but it had failed to do so for last three consecutive years.

The online web based portal allows overseas residents to lodge their complaints without having to make frequent visits to Pakistan. All they have to do is sign up on the website and enter the complaints regarding matters such as family disputes, property disputes, travel agents and airline related issues, criminal cases, financial disputes, issues related to cooperative society claim, etc. It also includes lodging a complaint for problems related to utilities i.e. water connection problems, telephone bills, electricity bills or sui-gas connection problems etc.

The applicants can also have follow-ups on their complaints through OPC helpline or via directly commenting on their complaints. It has improved the overall efficiency to manage complaints efficiently. Using the previous manual system, the commission also did not have these comprehensive statistics. Previously overseas Pakistanis had been facing various problems in communicating their issues to relevant authorities in their home country and required an efficient and accessible platform for this purpose. Similarly, there was no proper mechanism available with the authorities to track the complaints lodge by overseas Pakistanis.

For more information, contact:
Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB)
11th Floor, Arfa Software Technology Park,
346-B, Ferozepur Road, Lahore, Pakistan
Tel: +92-42-35880062
Fax: +92-42-99232123
Email: info@pitb.gov.pk
Website: www.pitb.gov.pk