Punjab Resource Improvement and Digital Effectiveness

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The objective of the Punjab Resource Improvement and Digital Effectiveness Program for Pakistan is to increase own source revenue, and improve reliability of resource allocation and access to digital services for people and firms in the province of Punjab. The project supports the Public Financial Management Reforms Strategy and public finance management and governance pillars (pillars D and E) of RISE Punjab, which are the subsets of Punjab Growth Strategy, in the following areas: (a) Strengthened Budget Formulation and Fiscal Risk Management. Activities include the support for: (i) organizational reforms in FD and P&DB; (ii) development of a medium-term fiscal framework incorporating fiscal impact of climate change; (iii) development of a regulatory framework to facilitate integration of recurrent and development budgets; (iv) improvements in public investment management; (v) management of fiscal risks, in addition to a framework of minimum standards that reflect the concerns of women, girls and vulnerable groups in disaster preparedness and response; (vi) development of a legal framework for disaster risk financing; (vii) strengthening capacity of LGs for disaster response; and (viii) establishment of the Disaster Risk Fund. (b) Increased Use of Digital Technology for Delivery of Selected Public Services. Activities include the support for (i) review of existing business processes to identify redundant procedures; (ii) simplifying business processes to remove redundancies; (iii) digitization of public services for citizens and firms; (iv) improving women’s utilization of newly digitized services; (v) development of a legal framework for electronic payments, mobile money, digital identification, geospatial systems and cloud-based computing; and (vi) revision of PFC award to introduce a need-based formula for transfers from the Provincial Government to LGs and a performance grants scheme for targeted support to LGs for the vulnerable population of Punjab. (c) Improved Collection of OSR. Activities include the support for: (i) coordination of revenue policy and implementation measures; (ii) impact assessment of COVID-19 and climate events of recent past (recurrent) on revenue, to inform the design of related revenue policies and the revenue mobilization strategy and plan of the Provincial Government; (iii) expansion of the service sales tax base and increased taxpayer compliance; (iv) integration of taxpayers’ data across three (3) tax authorities (selected taxes) and linkage with third party data; (v) simplification of tax administration processes and adoption of performance framework; (vi) development of online and mobile functionalities for tax payment; and (vii) building the capacity of ETNCD to modernize property valuation system to enhance revenue potential from public and private real estate.