Chinese President visit

Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif hand shake with Chinese President.

Democracy WINS - Pakistan WINS!

Wall street Journal news about democratic Pakistan

PCEC map

This is the original and only map of PCEC.

Mass Transit Bus Projects

Rawalpindi Metro Project

PM meets King Salman

Pakitan stands beside Saudia for its soverignity

Reduction in fares of public transport

Toll free helpline for compaints

Parliament Gallery

Group Photo| Speaker NA Sardar Ayaz Sadiq with Dr. Cyrill Nunn, Ambassador of Germany and Members of Pakistan-Germany Parliamentary Friendship Group

News reel

Followers

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Audit report of National debt retirement scheme (NDRS)



Tuesday, September 15, 2015

PITB: An unheard story in Pakistan!




LAHORE


When the metro buses, offering scheduled rides, ply on roads in Lahore and Rawalpindi/Islamabad in a controlled environment and one looks at real-time maps on screens and listens to the automated voice messages on-board, the feeling of being in a developed foreign country is undeniable.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when one looks at reforms the Punjab government, powered by Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), has been introducing in the realm of good governance and public service delivery. The growing e-culture in public departments of Punjab government, from interactive dashboards to smartphone applications, is fast changing the government. Ask anyone in government of Punjab and people can’t seem to run out of superlatives for PITB’s work.

Name any department in Punjab, the PITB’s mark is pretty obvious, be it education, health, agriculture, livestock, law & order and revenue and many more. The Board is spearheading almost all the key initiatives of the Punjab government to provide quality services to the public, data-driven monitoring and automation of operations.

From real-time information on attendance of teachers and students in public schools across the province to repository of free digitised textbooks and disease surveillance, flood monitoring and crime investigation reporting and integrated command, control and communication systems and digitising land records, the PITB is helping drive the reform agenda of the government by implementing a robust monitoring system.

This monitoring system has been effectively used in curtailing dengue, tracking vaccinators, assessing flood damages, and of course subsequent efforts by the Punjab government to introduce reforms and achieve desired improvements. The PITB’s role in education sector, which is something very close to Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s heart, is quite significant and the same has been resulting in different policy interventions from the government.

Today when we appreciate improvement in attendance of teachers and students (above 90 percent) in over 50,000 public schools across Punjab the fact should not be neglected that all this is possible through the monitoring staff, equipped with SIM-enabled tablet PCs developed by the PITB, which allow them to digitally submit monitoring forms during their visits. The system is really helping reducing absenteeism. Similarly it was the PITB designed smartphone-based early epidemic warning system which played a key role in fighting dengue epidemic in 2012. Nonetheless, the PITB is somehow an unheard story in Pakistan!

“What India Can Learn About E-Governance From Pakistan” goes the headline of a prestigious media outlet of neighbouring India in recognition of services being rendered by the PITB, which is being headed by Dr Umar Saif, a LUMS graduate, who holds a PhD from University of Cambridge and Post-Doc from MIT. Last year, the PITB work was mentioned as one of the three global examples of innovation in governance by the World Bank President.

Recently the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has approached the PITB seeking its technical assistance in developing an android-based monitoring of Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) workers. It is pertinent to mention here that Punjab has successfully developed and implemented monitoring of vaccinators using android phone through its e-vaccination programme “eVaccs”.

According to Aizaz Akhtar, Head of Special Monitoring Unit at Chief Minister’s Office, the Health Department has been benefitting from PITB vis-à-vis the use of technology for better and effective service delivery. “PITB is our key partner in building technology to bring delivery culture in the government of Punjab”, he added. The PITB is also behind one of the significant developments taking place in Punjab Police vis-à-vis reforms in traditional “thana culture”. Through initiatives like Command, Control and Communication, commonly known as IC3, the PITB is engaged in improving operational efficiency of police and to put the force on modern lines. Through the IC3, the PITB is bringing together various elements of Punjab Police operation so that the same work as a unified team.

This team work seems to be at the heart of PITB when one visits its offices at Arfa Software Technology Park, named after Arfa Karim, the child prodigy who died at the age of 16. “The lights are never switched off at the PITB offices”, remarks one PITB employee about the grueling work hours at this organisation.

According to Waqas Hassan, AIG (Crime Analysis & Monitoring), who is focal person for these reforms at IG office, from automation of manual records to online FIR registration the PITB was helping Punjab Police to develop Police Computer System having features such as computerised registration of FIR, handheld biometric verification devices, digitised biometric criminal record database, and human resource management system etc. “An automated system of FIR system has been introduced in 201 police stations in Punjab”, said Waqas. The system along with other components will be replicated in all the districts across the province, he added.

Out of many other public-friendly initiatives the PITB has launched e-Stamping system in order to replace the arcane stamp paper system, fraught with fraudulent practices, and leakage of government revenues. The new system will enable a citizen to acquire a stamp paper within 30 minutes and will cut out fraud and forged transactions. Citizens can get an e-stamp paper through any designated branch of a schedule bank, saving both time and money.

Similarly the ATM-powered water filtration plants initiative to be launched as a pilot project in selective districts of Punjab is aimed at empowering people to reduce wastage of clean drinking water and its proper utilisation. “PITB is benefitting the common man by bringing down the barriers for accessing government services. For instance, with citizen facilitation centres (e-Khidmat Centres), citizens can access 16 government services under one roof without having to wait in long queues, track their applications through an automated process and expect a response within a stipulated time”, said Dr Umar Saif.

It is pertinent to mention here that Dr Saif is also the founding Vice-Chancellor of Information Technology University (ITU) and the first Pakistani to be named as one of the top 35 young innovators in the world (TR35) in 2011 by MIT Technology Review. He is also first Pakistani to receive a PhD in Computer Science from Cambridge and that too at the age of 23. He has a long list of international accolades to his name. He also received Siatra-e-Imtiaz (SI) for his services in the field of Information Technology.

The PITB’s success story is certainly a result of putting the right man for the right job, and in this case, the chief minister seems to have found just the right man for his reform agenda in the government.



 

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

China helps Pakistan build world’s largest solar farm

China helps Pakistan build world’s largest solar farm

Chinese companies are building a massive solar power station in the Punjab desert, but is the project the most effective way of solving Pakistan’s escalating energy crisis?
Photo courtesy of QASP
Once complete the 1,000 MW the Quaid-e-Azam solar park will be the world’s largest (Photo courtesy of QASP)
Some 400,000 solar panels, spread over 200 hectares of flat desert, glare defiantly at the sun at what is known as the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Power Park(QASP) in Punjab, named after Pakistan’s founding father.
The 100 MW photovoltaic (PV) solar farm was built by Chinese company Xinjiang SunOasis in just three months, at a cost of around US$131 million and started selling electricity to the national grid in August.
This is the first energy project under the US$46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a key part of China’s ‘new silk roads’, linking the port at Gwadar in southern Pakistan with Kashgar in China’s western region of Xinjiang.
The 100 MW plant is the pilot stage of a more ambitious plan to build the world’s largest solar farm. Once completed in 2017, the site could have capacity of 5.2 million PV cells producing as much as 1,000 MW of electricity – equivalent to an average sized coal-fired power station and enough to power about 320,000 households. Construction of the next stage is already underway, led by Zonergy, another Chinese company.
Eighteen months ago, the site was nothing more than wilderness. Now a mini city has emerged in the middle of the desert, with over 2,000 workers accompanied by heavy machinery, power transmission lines, blocks of buildings, water pipes and pylons.
Reducing emissions, providing livelihoods
The Cholistan desert is the ideal spot for solar power, said Muhammad Hassan Askari, operating manager of the solar park. The area gets 13 hours of sunlight every day while the huge expanse of flat desert is ideal for a large commercial project.
The big advantage of solar power, he said, is that a large park can be completed faster than thermal or hydropower projects, which take much longer and require a lot of maintenance.
The solar park will also shrink Pakistan’s carbon footprint, said Najam Ahmed Shah, the chief executive officer of QASP, displacing about 57,500 tonnes of coal burn and reducing emissions by 90,750 tonnes every year.
Pakistan aims to reduce its reliance on hydrocarbons, especially imported coal, oil and gas, to around 60% by 2025 from the present 87%. The country has a target to produce 10% of its total energy mix from renewables (excluding hydropower, which already constitutes 15% of the total energy mix). The current generation from renewable energy is around 1-2%.
While Pakistan contributes less than 1% to global GHG output, the country’s carbon emissions are growing by 3.9% a year. By 2020 it will spew out 650 million tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) if the current trend continues, said climatologist Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, the UN secretary general’s special advisor for Asia with the World Meteorological Organisation.
The solar park will also eventually generate 15,000 to 33,000 jobs for local people alone and attract investment to the region.
The Quaid-e-Azam plant will be almost double the size of the existing largest solar PV generating facilities worldwide
Unprecedented scale
Some experts worry the project is too ambitious. Former director general of WWF-Pakistan Ali Hassan Habib, who now runs a company providing rooftop solar solutions, welcomed the project but was uneasy about the government “jumping into untested scale”. The plant will be almost double the size of the existing largest solar PV generating facilities worldwide, he said.
“It may have been better to build the equivalent remaining 900 MW closer to where electricity is consumed – on say the rooftops of large parking lots – rather than installing it in remote locations,” he said.
Environmental impact of clean energy
Because solar energy is still finding a foothold in the energy mix and technologies are evolving, not enough is known about the park’s impact on the environment and natural resources.
Some negative impacts have already become apparent. For example, solar power consumes lots of water. PV panels may require little maintenance, according to QASP, but they need to be kept squeaky clean. An estimated one litre of water is used to clean each panel. Water consumed to clean the eventual 5.2 million panels built will be colossal for a country that is fast becoming water stressed. Currently, 30 people take 10 to 15 days to clean the entire 400,000 cells.
“This year we’ve been very lucky as there have been unprecedented rains and so panels were cleaned automatically,” said Askari, who said they were looking for more efficient ways to clean panels.
At the same time, increasing human activities will disturb the arid region’s rich biodiversity and wildlife, such as the chinkara (Indian gazelle), caracal cat and houbara bustard.
The construction of new road network and supporting commercial activities associated with large solar PV projects do leave a substantial “footprint” on the land, agreed Habib.
 Water consumed to clean the eventual 5.2 million panels built will be colossal for a country that is fast becoming water stressed
Shah justified the project, saying it was built on uninhabited wasteland. “An Initial Environmental Examination was carried out and we got a nod from the Environment Protection Department before embarking upon the project,” he explained.
Habib suggested the government set up an environment and social fund to offset any negative impact.
Environmentalists are also concerned about the fate of the millions of PV panels which will wear out within 25 years. The panels will have to be recycled to extract the silicon used to make them, and then replaced.
Pakistan’s energy crisis
Pakistan has been in the grip of severe energy shortages for many years with some rural areas left without power for up to 20 hours a day. There has been little local or foreign investment in the industrial sector because of the extensive power cuts, and a number of factories have had to close down.
Capture
With an installed electricity generation capacity of 22,797 MW, the country’s total production stands at just 14,000 MW.  In recent years, demand has risen to 19,000 MW.
While the 1,000 MW of solar energy will help ease energy constraints, Askari said government investment in several other hydropower and coal projects should also help alleviate power shortages.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif promised power cuts would end by 2017-2018 at the inauguration ceremony of 100 MW solar project in May, earlier this year.
Not everyone is happy
But some critics say it is the investors who will get rich from the solar project, while consumers will have to pay more in the long run.
“Hydropower can produce energy for less than half the price of solar and about the same as wind so why a fixation on solar?” said an Islamabad-based energy expert working with the government, who spoke to thethirdpole.net on the condition of anonymity.
He is sceptical of solar for a number of reasons.
First, the solar farm will actually produce far less than the much touted 1,000 MW of electricity. “On average, solar power plants deliver only about 20% of installed capacity, and the peak production is during the day, while the peak demand is in the evening when the plant does not produce anything,” the expert pointed out. Alternative arrangements have to be made to draw upon hydro or thermal sources at an “extra cost”. But the project’s owners say the 100MW solar plant could produce near to capacity at 85MW at its peak.
Second, solar energy is more expensive than other energy sources. QASP claims it is selling solar power to the grid at US$0.14/unit. Sources within theNational Transmission and Despatch Company say they have signed a deal to buy electricity at $0.24/unit, which will drop later to perhaps $0.17/unit after seven years when loans are paid off. In either case, this price is far higher than the $0.07 for hydropower, $0.11 for fuel oil and $0.12 for imported LNG.
“And these figures are only for generation; another 25% must be added to it for cost of delivery to be borne by the consumer, accounting for losses and theft,” he pointed out.
“The financial justification for solar was approved when oil prices were at US$110 a barrel,” he said, lamenting that the government refused to heed to advice that oil prices would drop.
Others argue that solar prices will decline over time, making it competitive. Vaqar Ahmed, deputy executive director at the Islamabad-based think tank, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, said: “For every new technology the fixed costs are higher in the initial years and diminish over time as economies of scale are achieved.” And learning from China, efficiency will rise and prices for solar cells will continue to fall, he said.
Wind could be a much bigger contributor to Pakistan’s energy need, said WWF’s Habib, given its potential of 120,000 MW. “Unlike solar, wind energy maintains production at night,” he pointed out.

Political risks
With just a little over two years left in his term, the success of the solar project is important for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
“The project has huge political implications for the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (N),” said Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) M. Hassan Malik, who is responsible for the security arrangements of the entire QASP area.
“Through this project the government also wants to send out the message to the outside world that it has the capacity to undertake mega projects and will provide foolproof security to investors.”
Working in an area characterised by lawlessness and extremism, Malik’s job is challenging. “Not only is the park a national asset, we have foreign nationals working at the plant, so the sensitivity is two-fold,” he said.
There are 800 to 900 men guarding the site where around 400 Chinese workers and over 2,000 labourers work at any given time.
Culture shock
For Alexander Halbich, a German engineer who has been at the park for over a year, getting used to heavily armed security men following him around was  most disconcerting aspect of his new job. “The food is good, the people are extremely hospitable and we do go out to the city once in a while tailed by armed guards, but there is little to do after dark,” he added.
“There isn’t much to do in the evenings,” agreed Muhammad Hasan Askari, who heads the technical team. Hailing from Lahore, Punjab’s capital, he keeps himself busy with work and looks forward to going home at the weekends.
Foreign workers get to go home less often. “I go every three months for ten days or more,” said Zhang Ting, a young Chinese engineer. “I’m quite ready to go home by two months but when I do go back, I miss Pakistan and the work,” she added.
Ting had to deal with a language barrier and hostile weather when she arrived to work at the site. The Chinese engineer also had to adjust to a very different work culture.
“We resolved the issue by getting more Pakistanis on our design team to crease out the differences and conflicts,” she said.


In Pakistan, a prime minister and a country rebound — at least for now

In Pakistan, a prime minister and a country rebound — at least for now

— One year after he was nearly bounced from office, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has hung on amid signs the country could be on the cusp of a surprising turnaround.
After years of terrorist attacks, military coups and political upheaval, Pakistan for now has settled into a period of relative calm. Over the past nine months, government statistics show, major terrorist attacks have declined 70 percent, and Pakistanis are flocking back to shopping malls, resorts and restaurants.
The relaxed and optimistic mood here is benefiting Sharif politically, despite the humiliation he faced a year ago when he had to cede a chunk of his power to Pakistan’s military. Still, the arrangement is allowing Sharif to do something that Pakistani leaders have struggled to accomplish for much of the past decade: implement a road map for what a peaceful, stable Pakistan could look like. And in the process, Sharif is winning over skeptics despite his low-key leadership style.
“People are feeling more secure. There are development projects, and the perspective of people is changing to say, ‘Okay, now we can see things are going well,’ ” said Zafar Mueen Nasir, dean of business studies at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. “Of course, there will always be some criticism and always a second opinion, but as far as I am concerned, this government is at least showing some progress.”
Last summer, after Sharif’s first year in office was marked by disputes with political rivals and the country’s powerful military, tens of thousands of protesters camped out near his mansion, demanding his resignation. At the time, there was widespread speculation that military leaders were considering a coup to oust Sharif over his diplomatic outreach to Pakistan’s arch rival, India.
But as Islamabad slipped into an unusually chilly fall, Sharif outlasted the protesters. To remain in office, he reportedly had to make significant concessions to military commanders, including giving them full authority to make major decisions related to government policy toward Afghanistan and India.
Now, despite his reduced power, Sharif has turned his attention toward trying to rebuild a chronically sluggish economy while also delivering shiny new amenities for residents.
It’s a strategy that has become easier to implement this year, as a military campaign in Pakistan’s tribal belt and its largest city, Karachi, has been credited with reducing terrorist attacks and other crimes.
In the first eight months of this year, 680 civilians have been killed in terrorist attacks, compared with 1,194 in the same period last year and 2,246 in 2013, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, which monitors violence in the region.
A rapidly growing country of 180 million, Pakistan has plenty of obstacles to overcome.
Energy shortages can keep the lights out for hours at a time, even in wealthy neighborhoods. Tens of millions of children suffer from poor nutrition, unsafe drinking water and sporadic access to medical care. The average Pakistani makes just $1,513 per year; many can’t find jobs. And Pakistan still has unsettled relations with India and Afghanistan, both of which accuse it of using favored terrorist groups as proxies to destabilize its neighbors.
Pakistan’s bare-knuckled political system also remains unsettled. Sharif, who still has 2 ½ years remaining in his term, will continue to face relentless challenges from political rivals eager to exploit the next crisis.
But in recent months, speculation about a civil war or an economic collapse has died down. Instead, credit agencies are boosting Pakistan’s bond ratingsand large investment firms are advising clients to take a second look at opportunities here.
“It is the best, undiscovered investment opportunity in emerging or frontier markets,” Charlie Robertson, London-based chief economist at Renaissance Capital, told Bloomberg News in late June.
The International Monetary Fund, which has extended a $6.2 billion loan, released a report last month crediting Pakistan for its 4.1 percent growth in gross domestic product this year, with a bump up to 4.5 percent projected for next year.
Many economists and analysts, however, remain skeptical that Pakistan’s economy and government have truly turned a corner toward happier, more prosperous times. They note that past moments of stability have been quickly disrupted by tragedy, scandal or an investor-rattling political or military crisis.
“I still don’t really see many reasons for real optimism,” said Frederic Grare, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The economic situation is better right now, but the economic situation is better for almost everybody because energy is cheap.”
Sharif, however, has started delivering on his promise to make life a bit easier for Pakistan’s middle class, which for decades has endured substandard transportation, housing and employment options.
A millionaire business tycoon who also served two terms as prime minister in the 1990s, Sharif is promising to build 800 miles of highways and 14 power plants by 2018.
Several of the projects are designed to accommodate a major expansion of Chinese investment in Pakistan. China is hoping to use Pakistani roads and ports to open up new trading routes via the Arabian Sea, which could also help Pakistan expand its manufacturing base.
Although that partnership might take decades to reach its potential, Sharif is also implementing shorter-term goals to improve life for Pakistanis.
In May, Sharif inaugurated a 14-mile rapid-bus system connecting the relatively affluent capital of Islamabad to the working-class town of Rawalpindi. A month earlier, the government introduced new cross-country, deluxe train service featuring air-conditioning, WiFi and televisions.
The Islamabad airport, consistently ranked as one of the most outdated in the world, has been upgraded with spiffier ticket counters, air-conditioned shuttle buses and its first fast-food restaurant.
“This government is far better, compared to previous governments,” Dilawar Ali, a 43-year-old engineer, said as he shopped at a market in Islamabad. “Look at these Metro bus projects, these roads and bridges. We could only imagine such things when we were in school and college kids.”
But Salman Zaidi, deputy director of the nonpartisan Jinnah Institute, said a closer examination of Sharif’s record still leaves major questions about his leadership style.
The prime minister, who declined to be interviewed for this article, lacks the forceful persona needed to become a unifying leader in a country with eight major political parties, Zaidi said. Sharif’s overall approach to governing, he said, is also outdated.
“He has a mind-set that comes from the 1950s, where large infrastructure projects equal development, and I think we have moved several decades beyond that,” Zaidi said. “A better estimation of a politician’s ability is ability to deliver on the ground in terms of education, in terms of justice, in terms of health care.”
Marvin Weinbaum, a Pakistan expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said there is also broad disappointment that Sharif hasn’t been able to do more to curb the electricity shortage or to overhaul a government bureaucracy that numbers 650,000 employees.
“Yes, Pakistan has stabilized, but it’s stabilized because the military said to Nawaz, ‘Okay, if you want to stay in power, you are going to play by our rules,’ ” Weinbaum said. Sharif, he added, “is not seen as a real reformer.”
In Karachi, which generates a quarter of Pakistan’s GDP, business leaders are also angered by Sharif’s efforts to broaden Pakistan’s tax base — a key demand of the IMF and other creditors. Pakistani farmers are nervous about sluggish exports.
Still, for the broader Pakistani public, the country finally appears to be waking up after a decade-long slumber.
After the Ramadan holiday ended in mid-July, surprising numbers of Pakistanis flocked to Himalayan mountain resort towns, overwhelming highways and hotels.
Last month, the largest crowd in years filled Islamabad’s streets to celebrate Pakistan’s Independence Day.
In Peshawar, where the Pakistani Taliban killed about 150 teachers and students at a school in December, merchants are also reporting an increase in business as violence waned this year.
“No doubt, business activities are encouraging,” said Haji Khanan, a 50-year-old shop owner in Karkhano Market, on the edge of Peshawar near Pakistan’s once-unruly tribal belt. “You can see for yourself. Look, there are no free spaces available for parked cars.”
Whether Pakistan’s momentum can be sustained, however, is a question most Pakistanis are hesitant to answer.
“It’s 10 p.m., and I am here shopping with my kids and wife, and in previous years I would not be going out at this late hour,” Arif Khaliq, 43, said while buying back-to-school shoes. “Now, will this last? That is to be seen. . . . We can only pray.”
Tim Craig is The Post’s bureau chief in Pakistan. He has also covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and within the District of Columbia government.