Space Technology Application in Socio-Economic Development Project of the Urban Unit is facilitating the Government Departments that include Forest Department, Agriculture Department, Punjab Social Protection Authority, Planning & Development Board, Punjab Information Technology Board, Punjab Environmental Protection Agency, Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Mines & Minerals, Irrigation Department and SUPARCO in RS/GIS perception for the ease of the process and accuracy of information. Space Tech Project of the Urban Unit is facilitating Govt. Departments for centralized platform for data management, visualization and sharing with department through user based logins. The project is facilitating in developing revenue boundaries dashboard up to Mouaza level for 36 districts of Punjab. Further, the project will help to strengthen the departments by providing them satellite images, vector and raster datasets, base maps, data analytics, trainings, dashboards and web portals to the government departments.

Government of the Punjab developed the Punjab Jobs & Competitiveness Program for Results (J&C Program) with the assistance of World Bank to support industrial and spatial development in Punjab. Punjab Spatial Strategy Project (PSS) is one of the key components of the J&C Program. Planning and Development Board, Government of the Punjab, (P&D Board) was the Sponsoring Agency and Urban Sector Planning and Management Services Unit (Pvt) Limited (the Urban Unit) was the Executing Agency for the PSS Project.

The Strategy developed under the PSS Project is manifestation of the overall spatial vision, polices and future spatial development objectives for Punjab. The Punjab Spatial Strategy assesses the potential of Punjab’s growth corridors and growth nodes and prioritizes and coordinates investments in the province. This strategy will inform in particular public investments related to connectivity, infrastructure, urbanization and development of industrial zones, which will be reflected in the MDTF (Medium-Term Development Framework – a multi-year indicative budget) before approval through the ADP (Annual Development Plan – the annual budget) process.

The Urban Unit in collaboration with Excise, Taxation & Narcotics Control Department started GIS Integrated Computerization of Urban Immovable Property Tax (UIPT) in Sialkot District as pilot project in 2013. The primary objectives of the project were to develop a robust system which should not only meet the requirements of modern world, but also have the characteristics of plugging all the avenues of leakages of revenue resulting into increase in revenue, which apart from it should be transparent and user friendly.

It was envisaged that after successful completion of the pilot project in Sialkot, it could be extended to all the Districts of Punjab. However, after successful completion of the pilot project, the Government of the Punjab decided to extend it in Phase-I, to 5-Largest cities of Punjab including Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Rawalpindi, which generate almost 80% of the total revenue collection, which was supposed to be accomplished with 20% efforts.

These six districts, as a whole, have 2.2 million properties in which 1 million are taxable and remaining are non-taxable. The successful implementation of this system enhanced the speed of the work, quality, timely reporting, transparency, strong monitoring, reports generation, computerized PT-1, PT-10 Challan Forms, PT-13, PT-17 issuance. A complete database and system was provided to the department on 30th June, 2015.

As a result of GIS Integrated Computerization of UIPT in these six districts, identification of almost 5 lacs new/left over property units which were added in the database apart from an increase of PKR 1.5billion revenue with a recurring effect, has been made possible. As such the cost of the project was recovered within the first year of the implementation, setting an example of payback of the cost of a project within the shortest possible time-less than one year.

After smooth system running for the last 3 years, the department finally decided to extend the GIS Integrated system of Computerization of UIPT in the remaining Districts of the Punjab. From the 1st day of July, 2016, the Phase-II of the Project “the GIS Integrated Computerization of UIPT in remaining 30-Districts of the Province of Punjab has been started.