Open Data Initiative (ODI) launched by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) will help the citizens to obtain information under Punjab Transparency and Right to Information law efficiently. It was stated by the Chairman PITB Dr. Umar Saif while talking in a meeting here. He explained that under this innovative program, the PITB is working with government agencies to establish a functional system through which quality information can be made available to the public on a web platform in easy-to-use and interactive open formats which allow citizens to search, aggregate, compare and view data according to their need. He said that the initiative has been started in collaboration with the World Bank and Information Technology University Lahore and it will be operationalized up to Tehsil level in the province. Dr. Saif revealed that the datasets uploaded so for contain information related to the population census, agriculture census, ADPs, development schemes, budget, salaries, Mauza (village) mapping, Multiple Index Cluster Survey, Education and Health Management Information System and Household Integrated Economic Survey etc while the work on other fields is in progress. He claimed that this online accessibility and transparency of information can lead to the creation of an effective system of government responsibility and accountability. Dr. Saif further elaborated that through crowd-sourcing of data the citizens wouldalso be able to monitor and provide feedback on government projects through different media such as SMS services, mobile applications, web-portals and Geo-tagging of project site photographs thus creating two-way communication between the government and its people. “The availability of reliable and good quality government data through this project will also be of immense benefit to people from different fields including journalists, researchers, policy-makers and academics,” he added
