Shehbaz Sets Deadline for Ministries to Hand Over Data to Digital Nation Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday told every federal ministry to finish the required work within a fixed time frame so that their data can be handed over to the Digital Nation Pakistan programme.

The prime minister issued the instruction while chairing a meeting on the programme in Islamabad. He said a central, national-level data centre being set up under Digital Nation Pakistan would play a central role in how the government delivers services and public facilities to citizens.

Assigning clear responsibilities to ministries and feeding their data into one national centre, he said, would bring the government machinery in line with modern requirements.

What the Digital Nation Pakistan data centre will do

At the heart of the programme is a single national data centre that will collect and hold the records ministries now keep in separate silos. The idea is straightforward: when departments share information with each other, services reach citizens faster and with fewer visits to government offices.

“The Digital Nation Pakistan programme is essentially aimed at ensuring efficient and convenient services for citizens nationwide,” the prime minister said during the meeting.

He pointed to a recent example to make the case. Data shared between institutions, he said, had played a key role in the successful rollout of the fuel subsidy scheme for deserving segments of society. Targeted help only works when the government can identify who actually needs it, and that depends on shared, reliable records.

The prime minister also linked digitisation to accountability. Putting ministry performance figures and departmental data on digital platforms, he said, was important to curb corruption and institutional mismanagement. When records are digital and traceable, it becomes harder to hide delays, inflated figures or irregular decisions.

Medicines, health and agriculture on the priority list

The meeting was told that digitisation in the health and agriculture sectors was being completed on a priority basis.

A detailed briefing covered how health ministry data is being provided to the central data centre, and how digitisation is being used to check the quality of medicines. The prime minister welcomed the introduction of QR codes to make sure quality medicines reach patients across the country. The codes will let medicines be traced through the supply chain, making it harder for counterfeit or substandard drugs to circulate unnoticed.

Officials said the IT ministry, working with the law ministry, was also preparing to place relevant national laws on a single platform. The aim is to give lawmakers and legal drafters one reliable reference point when they prepare future legislation.

What happens next

Ministries now have to work against the clock. Each one must complete its internal preparations and transfer its data to the national centre within the deadline the prime minister has set.

The meeting was told that work on priority sectors is continuing under the prime minister’s directives, with special steps being taken to promote digital government services, a digital economy and digital facilitation for the public.

If ministries meet their deadlines, the data centre could become the backbone of a genuinely one-window system where a citizen’s information follows them from one department to another. The test will be whether the flow of data keeps moving once the deadlines pass, or stalls like earlier digitisation drives.

Frequently asked questions

What is Digital Nation Pakistan?

Digital Nation Pakistan is the government’s flagship digitisation programme. It aims to connect federal ministries through a central data centre so that public services are delivered efficiently and conveniently to citizens.

What has the prime minister ordered?

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed all federal ministries to complete the necessary measures within a stipulated time and provide their relevant data to the programme’s central data centre.

How will the programme help ordinary citizens?

By linking ministry data in one place, the government expects faster services, better-targeted welfare schemes such as the fuel subsidy, traceable quality medicines through QR codes, and less room for corruption and mismanagement.

Which sectors are being digitised first?

Health and agriculture are the priority sectors. The IT ministry is also working with the law ministry to put national laws on a single platform for future legislation.