LAHORE: The Punjab Livestock and Dairy Development Department (PL&DD) has decided to revive its software system to ensure delivery of services to cattle breeders and better monitoring of services, Pakistan Today learnt on Tuesday.
According to details, a meeting was held in the PL&DD to activate its helpline 9211 and revive its software system for virtual governance.
Talking to Pakistan Today, a senior official of PL&DD said it has been decided to revive the department’s virtual governance system in collaboration with the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB). “The virtual governance system is a unique system that uses Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) technology and retrieves large data from mobiles of more than 7000 employees in the field. The system also allows data entry without the use of mobile applications, computers, Android, smart devices and Internet, making it a low-cost and high-quality data collection facility,” the official said.
“With the help of this system, the Punjab government obtained evidence of authentic data and for the first time formulated the “Livestock and Dairy Development Policy Punjab 2016″.”
“All the 25892 villages of the province were coded and a livestock database of more than 7.4 million farmers and more than 65 million animals was created within the system. All the services provided by the PL&DD, including 51 field services, 51 OPD services, 329 different types of tests and artificial insemination, were fully digital due to the system,” he added.
Livestock Secretary Captain (R) Saqib Zafar said that 34 modules would be made functional under the system. “The system will have a proper HRM mechanism, under which the database of all the farmers of the province will be collected. All records of vaccinations given to cattle will also be available in the system. The usefulness of the system is very high and the main benefit we will have is that the system will automatically tell us how much vaccination has been given to cattle in all areas of the province. Moreover, it will also be known that in which area, the stock of vaccination is adequate or less and the vaccines will be supplied accordingly to ensure a balanced distribution,” Zafar said.
“The system would help in correcting the data and all the data available with the PL&DD would be made credible. When the data of all the animals and their medical treatment will be available in the system, it will be very easy to create new strategies for improvement. The system also has a real-time audit function for the services provided by the department, which will improve service delivery. To improve the services through feedback, all the farmers will receive an SMS after treatment of their animals. With the changing trends of science and technology, we have to take all possible steps for the development and promotion of cattle breeders,” he concluded.
