Lahore
Following the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Pakistan Te-hreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government to bring about transparency in the public departments and to pro-vide maximum facilities to people, the Punjab Transport Department is heading towards digitization.
The steps being taken would also help minimise the corrupt practices and to bring ease in doing busi-nesses.
Talking to APP, Director Information Technol-ogy at the Transport Department Asim Iqbal said that the department was taking revolutionary meas-ures to enter the digital era, which would ensure ease of doing business and bring transparency.
He said that the first-ever website of the de-partment was launched during the PTI government in 2019, where all updated information regarding services provided by the department was available.
Now, the route permit fee and fitness certificate fee payment are also linked through bank challan instead of adhesive stamps, he said adding that the applicants could deposit the route permit fee through any branch of National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), over the counter (OTC) at GoPb Biller or by alternative delivery channel (ADC) through all banks.
From Jan 1, 2020, he said that the payment of 32-A challan is also digitalized through banks to facilitate the users, he added.
The director said that the department had also developed an application to used by the enforcement teams of the department who work in the field, as it is helping them check status of the commercial ve-hicles about its route permit, challan payments or other pending dues on-the-spot.
He said the application is now enabling the per-sonnel of the enforcement teams to check the status of the vehicle on-the-spot as there was no mecha-nism earlier to verify the status and initiate action accordingly.—APP
