A couple of years ago, the Federal Government started developing and maintaining official websites under the e-government campaign. In 2005, the official website was launched for the President of Pakistan. It seemed as if the website was created in a hurry as the official .gov.pk domain was not used rather a .com domain had been used. Last week, the President’s website underwent a significant change. It’s now a .gov.pk domain and has a much better interface as well. It is far from perfect but it sure is a welcoming improvement.
The most recognizable thing is the change to .gov.pk which gives the website the status of an official government website, rather than the old .com domain which portrayed the negligence of the Aiwan e Sadr towards maintaining an online presence.
The main page seriously needs improvement as the larger pictures are surely an unwelcome sight. Other than the main page, the drops down menus are much better than the previous website where the links from the main page were quite frankly pathetic and hardly any information was available. The multimedia section on the website is maintaining a photo and video gallery of the president and the archives section presents a peek into the past as well. The photo gallery’s I have to say are better managed than the rest of the website.
The “About Pakistan” page is almost the same as present on the websites of different Pakistani missions abroad and deserves a makeover. The Country Profile on the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is quite well in this regard and I’m sure the President’s Media Team is more than capable to write a couple of nice paras about our country.
The President maintains an unofficial website at zardari.tv which is aimed more towards a political website, which I’m guessing is maintained by the PPP Secretariat.
I’m hopeful the Prime Minister Secretariat will soon come up with pm.gov.pk or primeminister.gov.pk. As of today, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting maintains the PM’s only online presence with an official profile. The PM surely needs his own domain and official website. (The PM Secretariat website http://www.pmsectt.gov.pk/ is the same as the official website of the Federal Government at http://www.pakistan.gov.pk)
Overall, the new design is much better than the old one and is a good change. The E-Government Directorate has hardly done anything towards establishing an online presence of the government and establishing a much easier way for the masses to interact with officials.
Looking forward to a change in the design of Federal Ministry websites as well, nearly all of which have the same standardised design and are hardly ever updated.