‘FM Portal’ for Pakistanis living in 187 countries launched

Islamabad: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Monday launched the ‘FM Portal’ for Pakistanis living in 187 countries as a platform providing them quick solutions to their problems.

In his address at the launch of the initiative under Vision FO here at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he urged the envoys to connect with the Pakistanis living in the countries of their assignment and address their problems in a prompt way.

FM Qureshi said that all foreign missions of Pakistan were connected online and were active on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The portal has been launched in line with Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision and the Foreign Minister’s ‘Digital Diplomacy Agenda’ and ‘Public Diplomacy Initiative’.

The mobile application has been developed by the National Information Technology Board with the help of the Prime Minister’s Performance Delivery Unit.

It will provide services in the standard procedure for document verification, the launch of QR code, and digital system to reduce the chances of counterfeiting and verification of documents through courier services within Pakistan.

It will also help in online verification of power of attorney for overseas Pakistanis through missions.

Under the initiative, the setting up of NADRA counters has been planned at 16 missions abroad for issuance of succession certificates and administrative letters to overseas Pakistanis.

The Foreign Office is also consulting with the police departments of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan to digitize the issuance of police character certificates according to the Punjab and ICT police.

In addition, so far 14 missions have been given access to digital records of ‘mutation’ and ‘registration’ documents of the Punjab Land Record System.

Under the FM’s digital diplomacy agenda, the foreign minister had launched the “FM Direct App” last year.

Foreign Secretary Sohail Mehmood, Special Secretary Raza Bashir Tarar, and senior officials of MoFA and the Ministry of Information Technology attended the event.