KP Government Completely Digitizes Its Food Division

The provincial food department was officially digitalized on Wednesday by Atif Khan, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Minister for Food, Science, Technology, Information Technology, and Sports and Youth Affairs.

He pressed the start button at the food directorate, describing the innovation as a turning point for the province's food industry.

The intervention based on information and communication technology (ICT) is a complete mechanism to cover all sectors, from the management of storage facilities to fleets, as well as the e-inspection procedures, according to the minister, who spoke at the event.

With just one click, the government may now obtain data for decision-makers to rapidly access, such as records of wheat stock.

He went on to explain that the KP administration is using ICT intervention and digitising the system to clean up defects and inconsistencies in records.

The new system would convert traditional bookkeeping to an online database, providing the authorities real-time access to the records for each warehouse.

The supply chain management system (SCMS) for the food department will also be a part of the digitization, according to Mushtaq Ahmad, secretary of the food department. It will be possible to foresee how much wheat the province would want in the future and will be able to establish whether the wheat supply was imported or locally acquired. Additionally, it will maintain a list of vendors and purchasing organisations.

The fleet contractors and cars used by the province will be tracked via the Fleet Management System (FMS), according to the secretary. All of the cars will be tracked in real-time by the system, regardless of where they may be at any particular time.

Similar to this, the Statistical Branch Management (SBM) system will aid decision-making by creating dashboards for pertinent parties that provide frequent interval reporting.

Human error in food testing will be reduced through the Laboratory Management Information System (MIS), which runs across the mobile and stationary labs of the KP Food Safety and Halal Food Authority.

The results of each food sample test will be immediately transferred to the central MIS, which will be directly connected to all testing equipment in the laboratories.

The information will allow the food authorities to identify patterns of food adulteration and pinpoint the most contaminated food items.

According to Secretary Ahmad, the new system would also include regulatory inspections of the food department.

All field staff will be required to submit daily inspection reports as part of the E-Inspection procedure using a unique mobile application. While the offenders will pay the challan charge directly to the bank, the staff will be able to issue challans online.