Daily Times

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government has achieved another milestone towards digital transformation by introducing ‘Digital Mahasil’ an integrated and unified platform for collection of fines, taxes and other revenues in the province. The Chief Minister, Ali Amin Khan Gandapur on Wednesday formally launched the e-fines portal under ‘Digital Mahasil’ initiative at a ceremony held at chief Minister’s Secretariat, Peshawar. Provincial cabinet members, Arshad Ayub Khan, Nazir Abbasi, Zahir Shah Toru, Brig. (R) Musadiq Abbasi, Muzzamil Aslam, Pir Mussawir Shah, Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretaries, Senior Member Board of Revenue, concerned administrative secretaries, high ups of KP ITB attended the ceremony. Divisional Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners also attended the ceremony via video link. As per details, e-fines portal has been piloted from the provincial capital Peshawar, which will be extended to rest of the districts of the province. Initially, the line departments, functioning under district administration will collect fines through digital portal, however, in later stages the initiative will be extended to other districts with addition of other features including collection of taxes and other revenues. The portal is an integrated digital platform with an ability to function offline as well. With the implementation of this integrated system alongside ensuring transparency in taxes and fines collection windows for forgery, duplication and mistakes will also be closed. Through e-fine portal, violators will be notified that they have been fined legally and their fines have been deposited in government kitty. Other features of the portal include, availability of artificial intelligence based dashboard recording all the details related to fines and revenues. Moreover, QR code generation facility has been incorporated for online verification of fines and taxes. Similarly, in next phase, a digital payment system will also be introduced for online payments. Addressing the ceremony, the Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur, said that e-fines portal besides creating convenience for the citizens would also help in increasing the performance of the government departments and institutions. He added that the provincial government was committed to digitizing all sectors under the e-governance policy, and the launch of the e-fines portal was a milestone in promoting e-governance in the province. He directed the district administration and all relevant departments to ensure effective use of newly launched portal. He emphasized that the ultimate goal of digitization was to bring transparency and to improve public service delivery in the province. He urged upon the provincial government departments to fulfill their responsibilities diligently to achieve this purpose.