Lahore, July 18, 2018 (PPI-OT): The registration of 350,000 farmer’s data in Aarazi Centers is helping in loan disbursement through 125,000 smartphones equipped with 10 Apps for farmers provided by PITB. This was stated by Dr. Umar Saif Chairman Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) while briefing the Punjab’s caretaker Minister for Energy and Local Government Zafar Mahmood during his visit to PITB here today. He informed that by detecting the farmer from data centers the interest free loan was disbursed through easy paisa in simple, speedy and transparent manner without involving the middle man and involving NRSP, Akhuwat, Telenor Microfinance Bank, National Bank and ZTBL, so far Rs. 30 billion interest free loan has been disbursed.
Dr. Saif added that the device with inbuilt 10 Apps provided data and access to subsidy, identify crops reporting, detection and yield, advice market crop price, order fertilizers, seeds and pesticides from government’s authorized dealers to deliver the requested service at their door step. This system has helped to identify that instead of importing Canola oil, first time the Canola crop has been sown on 350,000 acres area across the Punjab, he said.
He stated that earlier the subsidy for farmers was given through the fertilizer companies, which touched to the tune of Rs. 57 billion and now it has fallen to Rs. 1.8 billion after introducing bag coupon enabling the farmer to get direct subsidy resulting an increase of 15 % to the farmers. The direct subsidy to the farmer was started for Potash, which was being extended for DAP, Oil seed and cotton seed, he informed. The Chairman also informed that European Satellite Agency (ESA) has made a Hyper Spectral Imagery and made it freely available to use.
With this technology PITB has ensured the detection of 26 crops in 10-meter resolution with 93% accuracy in yield prediction and new data of crops was being collected in data centers through artificial intelligence, which helped in yielding and geo-tagging the crops. He informed that smart monitoring of education and health projects have brought remarkable achievements as there was no ghost school or admissions in the province of the Punjab while it has improved the attendance in real time while vaccination project initiated in October 2014 improved the geographic coverage from 14 % to 88 % through 3751 vaccinators.
The automation of 713 police stations across the Punjab has recorded 2.7 million complaints while 1. 8 million FIRs registered, computerized 26 registers and digitized 573531 finger prints of 36 CR offices, he said. Elucidating the salient features of the flagship project eStamping, Dr. Saif informed that it has stopped the fiscal pilferage of the past used to committed through fake and under value Stamp Papers, while the electronic stamping has noted a significant increase of Rs. 16 billion in revenue as compare to the previous year.
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