ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Education, Professional Training, and National Heritage Shafqat Mehmood on Tuesday launched an e-portal and mobile phone application designed for the Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) for granting equivalency certificates. The minister, addressing the ceremony, said that IBCC was following the directions of Prime Minister Imran Khan by introducing transparency, ease of doing business, and customer facilitation. According to the prime minister’s vision, the launch of such an application is not only a revolutionary step but also a signature project of the Ministry of Education that intends to minimise the problems of the public and increase their accessibility to the IBCC. He said that before digitalisation, applicants used to face many problems i.e., they had to stand in queues for hours to deposit fees and payment of IBCC to fulfil the condition of being physically present, that too, in its limited branches. Furthermore, courier services were not available and applicants had to travel miles to come to the office of IBCC to get equivalence certificates, he added. Mehmood said that the overseas Pakistanis were the country’s assets and the application would be helpful for them, adding that for the ease of the applicants, a courier service had been integrated so that applicants could track their applications in real-time. Furthermore, he congratulated all the stakeholders, especially the Secretary IBCC for facilitating the public by using the latest technology. Earlier, Secretary IBCC Dr Ghulam Ali Mallah briefed the minister on the utility and benefits of the application. This application enables people to apply online for equivalency certificates and also allows them to deposit their fees online from IBCC Mobile App through OTC, digital wallet payments from any financial institution through credit and debit cards. They will be updated throughout the processing of their application.