The federal government has moved ahead with a Rs 57.1 billion project to transform the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) administration and increase the country’s taxpayer base, with the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) recommending the Transforming and Digitalizing Revenue Administration (TADRA) Project to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for further consideration. The project is proposed to be financed through foreign funding under Asian Development Bank (ADB) technical assistance through a soft term loan, adding to a series of ADB backed reform efforts that have already supported FBR’s digitization push in recent years through the Domestic Resource Mobilization Program. During the CDWP meeting, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal stressed that the project must have clearly defined and measurable outcomes, particularly in terms of additional revenue generated, improvement in the tax to GDP ratio, and expansion of the taxpayer base, signaling that the government intends to hold the initiative to concrete performance benchmarks rather than treating it as an open ended modernization effort.
FBR told the forum that the investment would help raise Pakistan’s tax to GDP ratio to 13.5 percent by 2029 and bring more taxpayers into the formal tax system, a target that reflects the broader push under successive governments to widen the country’s narrow tax base through automation and improved compliance monitoring. The CDWP recommended the project to ECNEC with a condition that the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) thoroughly review its business model before final approval, adding a layer of independent scrutiny to a project of this scale before it proceeds further through the approval pipeline. This condition suggests that while the government is keen to move ahead with the digitization effort, there remains an appetite within the planning apparatus to ensure the underlying business case is sound before committing the full Rs 57.1 billion in foreign financed spending.
The TADRA project adds to a long running series of digitization initiatives FBR has pursued over the past several years, including its collaboration with Karandaaz Pakistan on developing a comprehensive digital strategy, its work with the ADB on the Domestic Resource Mobilization Program, and its ongoing efforts to build a faceless tax administration system aimed at reducing human interaction in the tax filing and enforcement process. FBR Chairman Rashid Mahmood Langrial has previously said the broader transformation of the revenue machinery would take two to three years to fully materialize, acknowledging that while FBR was among the earliest federal organizations to adopt digital systems back in the 1990s, its platforms became slow and fragmented over time and lacked proper integration, a gap that projects like TADRA appear designed to help close through more current infrastructure and coordinated implementation.
Separately, during the same CDWP meeting, the forum approved a Rs 5.01 billion project for expanding commercial scale olive cultivation in Pakistan, with the initiative focused on expanding olive farms in Balochistan and the newly merged districts, while Iqbal directed that the potential of the Potohar region also be incorporated into the broader plan. A Rs 5.76 billion project to revamp facilities at the Pakistan Sports Complex in Islamabad was also approved during the meeting, with the scope of work including rehabilitation of existing facilities, electrical systems, HVAC, plumbing, and firefighting infrastructure, along with new security and surveillance systems. While these two approvals fall outside FBR’s digitization push specifically, their inclusion in the same CDWP session underscores the range of development spending currently moving through the planning ministry’s approval pipeline alongside the tax administration project.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
