Pakistan 2.0: Technology to Drive Productivity and GDP

[Riaz Haq]

Introduction of green revolution technologies drove Pakistan's rapid GDP growth in 1960s and 1970s when it was essentially an agricultural economy. The decade of 1980s saw livestock revolution that helped increase farm productivity. Will rapid absorption of information and communication technology (ICT) do the same in coming decades?

Abundance of historical data on educational attainment shows that young Pakistanis are more literate and better educated than their parents and grandparents. And recent data confirms that they are rapidly embracing new technologies. Technology, particularly ICT, is increasingly visible among consumers, industries and public sector.  As a result, Pakistan today stands at the threshold of soaring productivity and rising standards of living over the next several decades. The basic requirements for it to materialize are maintenance of peace and security and  increasing investments in education, health care, energy and infrastructure.

3G, 4G Mobile Broadband Rollout:

The launch of 3G and 4G networks has accelerated the growth of Internet users in Pakistan. More than a million subscribers are signing up every month since the 3G and 4G rollout in the country last year. These new users are generating more and more data traffic requiring rapid increases in available bandwidth.

Pakistan ended March 2015 with over 12.07 million 3G/4G subscribers, up from 10.34 million in February, according to data from Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA). Telenor led the 3G/4G market with over 3.53 million subscribers, followed by CMPak (2.95 million 3G/4G subscribers), Mobilink (2.86 million 3G subscribers), and Ufone (2.66 million 3G subscribers). Warid had 66,140 LTE network subscribers at 31 March.

Thousands of kilometers long fiber network is currently in place to deal with the growing domestic bandwidth demand. Several projects are underway to grow this network further.

Consumer Applications:

Young entrepreneurs are developing and launching mobile apps for everything from sports and entertainment to education, ride-sharing and e-commerce.

Pepper.pk has topped BlackBerry’s Appworld with their game Ninja Fruit Bash, TenPearls won Nokia and ATT Innovators 2011 contest through their game Animal 101, start-ups such as PiLabs also made their mark with mobile games such as ‘Field Garfield’ which is an official Garfield game.

A ride-sharing app called savaree, photo-sharing app Groopic and custom shoes app Markhor have been making news lately in Pakistan and overseas.

E-commerce is taking off in Pakistan with companies such as Home shopping, Shophive, daraz.pk and Symbios are becoming popular for online shopping.

Spurred by a favorable regulatory and technology environment, Pakistan is witnessing dramatic growth in mobile banking.  Four out of five cellular mobile companies currently operating in Pakistan have launched m-money systems in partnership with financial institutions. The m-money market volume reached 153 million annual transactions worth US$ 6.2 billion as of 2013.

Industrial Applications:

Information and communications technology is being deployed in Pakistan's energy sector.

In addition to automatic reading of smart meters at the customer premises, smart meters have been installed with the support of USAID on incoming and outgoing feeders at all nine government-owned electric utilities. These will help move the system toward building of a smart national grid to better manage power generation, transmission and distribution in the country.

A captive power plant owned by Sapphire Group textile mill in Muridke Lahore is using hundreds embedded sensors and other digital instruments in power turbines, analyzing the data they collect, and using the information to improve the plant’s performance, optimize production and reduce unplanned downtime. US-based General Electric is paying for the sensors and the software. The company will be paid by splitting all benefits with Sapphire under a win-win scenario, according to GE Reports website.

Public Sector Applications:

IT projects ranging from automated meter reading and computerized land records management to online education and mobile banking are now at various stages of implementation across Pakistan.  In a report released last year, the World Bank called these projects "unprecedented in the public sector in developing countries". The objective of these efforts is to reduce corruption, increase productivity and improve service delivery in both private and public sectors.

The Punjab government is deploying smartphone applications to crack down on absentee mobile government workers and their corrupt practices. As part of this project, the government employee must send his or her picture and a report of interaction with citizens along with GPS coordinates. For example, a agricultural pest control official required to visit farmers must file reports of his findings and actions in real time via a smartphone app.

An SMS soliciting feedback from citizens is sent out after each such visit or interaction. Responses from users are logged into a central database, and the data then analyzed and mapped. Call centers have also been trained to contact those who do not respond or are unable to read the text due to illiteracy. More than three million users of public services have so far been contacted since the summer of 2012, with both positive and negative feedback, according to the World Bank report. “Sir, we went to the hospital yesterday. They asked for 1500 rupees [in bribes]. We didn’t have the money so we left,” reads one of the reports about a hospital in Lahore, the provincial capital. The feedback is actively monitored by the office the Chief Secretary – the top civil servant in the province – to manage the performance of officials.

Summary:

Pakistan today stands at the threshold of soaring productivity and rising standards of living over the next several decades. The basic requirements for it to materialize are maintenance of peace and security and  increasing investments in education, health care, energy and infrastructure.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

High-Speed Fiber Optic Connectivity in Pakistan

E-Commerce in Pakistan

Public Sector Apps in Pakistan

History of Educational Attainment in Pakistan

Online Education in Pakistan

Value Added Agriculture in Pakistan

Upwardly Mobile Pakistan

[Riaz Haq]

Broadband Users In Pakistan Including 3G And 4G Crossed 44.32 Million

https://www.researchsnipers.com/broadband-users-pakistan-including-...

The majority of contributors to this growth are mobile internet users via 3G and 4G services. These users have increased to 41.73 million by May 2017.

DSL subscribers in the country remain around 1.531 million. HFC, WiMAX, FTTH and EvDo subscribers are 52,096, 0.171 million, 42,611and 0.786 million respectively. Users using other internet technologies are around 9264. As mobile broadband services are portable this has led to huge growth in 3G/4G industry and it is expected to grow further in years to come.

Jazz is the biggest mobile phone operator in the country and it remains on top in supplying broadband services in Pakistan. It has 12.5 million 3G users and 0.895 4G users. As per a senior analyst the crucial point to ensure market dominance is being innovative and investing continuously to bring something new to the market. He said, “We aim to seamlessly deliver not only the best 3G/4G and voice services, but also constantly improve our customer care, and product lines.”

[Riaz Haq]

STYLY Provides VR Workshops In Pakistan
To encourage the fledgling Pakistani VR industry, STYLY is running workshops in Punjab universities.

https://www.vrfocus.com/2018/02/styly-provides-vr-workshops-in-paki...

Pakistan is home to over 211 million people, the world’s 5th largest population. It is also home to a growing technology sector and a slowly emerging virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) market. To encourage this growing area, STYLY have been running workshops in AR ad VR technology in Punjab.


STYLY set up workshops at 15 universities in Punjab, along with STYLY’s VR content creation and distribution service. A total of 2,165 students attended the sessions, where they could learn about VR and AR and have the opportunity to create their own VR content using the STYLY platform.

The sessions also gave students and faculty the chance to don a VR headset and have a VR experience, something that many were trying out for the first time.

“Pakistan’s students are bursting with talent, motivation, and potential,” says STYLY’s Chief Alliance Officer, Nausharwan Mir, “but unfortunately, most universities do not yet have any VR courses, labs, or resources. That’s why we came here – to provide the guidance, tools, and gateway for students in Pakistan to unlock their potential and participate in the VR industry, thereby improving their lives, nation, and the overall industry, by using STYLY technology.”

Pakistan’s growing IT industry is well recognised, and many companies and governments have been keen to invest in Pakistan’s economy, recognising its huge potential for growth. As seen by China’s $62 billion (USD) investment in infrastructure and mass transit in Pakistan.

The VR industry in that country is still in its infancy, however, so STYLY is planning to continue its work in building the VR industry and student communities.

[Riaz Haq]

My six years with the government
By Dr Umar Saif Published: May 30, 2018

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1722328/6-six-years-government/

Punjab has totally computerised its land revenue system (aka notorious Patwari system), where land record of over 54 million rural landowners has been digitised. This new computerised system has been used to issue over 8.2 million fards and perform over 4.5 million property transactions.

Likewise, all 713 police stations in Punjab have been totally computerised, including all previous criminal biometric record. Over 2.1 million computerised FIRs have been registered using this system. We have replicated the system in Sindh and last week, the Punjab and Sindh Police started integrating their system to better coordinate their activities across provincial boundaries. Similarly, we also replicated our investigation system for the K-P Police’s counter-terrorism department at their request.

A comprehensive case-flow management system has been installed at the Lahore High Court to ensure that cases can be tracked, scheduled and monitored throughout an automated system. Over 150,000 cases are now being processed using our automated case-flow management system.

A large number of property disputes arise from fake and back-dated stamp papers. Pakistan’s 117-year-old arcane stamp paper system also causes significant pilferage in stamp duty due to undervalued property transactions. To eliminate this, we have replaced all (high denomination non-judicial, and all judicial) stamp papers with e-stamps. Citizens can now buy e-stamps with a uniquely traceable verification number from a private bank, starting with Punjab Bank. Over Rs75 billion e-stamps have been issued throughout the province and a pilferage of over Rs10 billion annually has been eliminated.

Pakistan’s public-sector school education system is plagued by ghost schools, teacher absenteeism, bogus student enrolment and poor quality of education. We developed an extensive school monitoring system in Punjab, where monitoring officers carry out random inspections of each school every month using our application on computer tablets. The uploaded inspection reports are geo-tagged and include pictures of the attendance register and school headmaster. To date, over 2 million inspections have been carried out and ghost schools have been entirely eliminated. All this data is made publicly available in real-time at http://open.punjab.gov.pk. We also digitised all the textbooks in Punjab from grade 6-12. This content is freely available at http://elearn.punjab.gov.pk and is being rolled out in over 1,000 middle schools in Punjab.

[Riaz Haq]

Dastgir inaugurates advanced metering infrastructure at IESCO

https://pakobserver.net/dastgir-inaugurates-advanced-metering-infra...

The Federal Minister for Energy Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan inaugurated the first-ever data centre of Pakistan for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) at the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO).

“State-of-the-art services will be provided to electricity consumers as per their requirements.


Elimination of theft, further improvement in electricity delivery and not transferring the burden of electricity theft to consumers by obtaining accurate data is our top priority,” the minister said while inaugurating the data centre.

The minister further said that the energy industry has always needed modern technology and the government has started the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) in all power distribution companies (Discos) in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

IESCO’s AMI is a big project of Pakistan, he said, adding that the federal government is mulling shifting the public buildings from grid to solar power. “Various solar projects are underway in different parts of the country for getting low-cost electricity; it will be easier for Pakistan to progress through it.”

The minister said he had issued instructions to all Discos to shift the meters of commercial, agricultural, and bulk consumers as well as high-loss feeders and transformers to AMI meters. C

hairman Board of Directors of IESCO Engineer Qamar-ul-Islam Raja said the completion of this project will further increase the sale of electricity and timely recovery of dues would boost the financial position.

The establishment of an operational centre and a modern metering lab is also a part of this project, which will further improve the operational efficiency of IESCO, he said.

Speaking at the event, IESCO Chief Executive Officer, Dr Muhammad Amjad Khan, said this project will provide the company with accurate information and boost consumers’ confidence. He also said that apart from IESCO’s head- office, a backup data centre will be set up in Gujar Khan to deal with any emergency.