Padu: Rural community leaders playing key role to ensure no one left out

KUALA LUMPUR - Community leaders in rural areas are playing a crucial role in ensuring that the target of registering 29 million Malaysians in the Central Database Hub (Padu) system from yesterday until March 31 is achieved.

Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said to ensure that no one is left out from benefiting from the system, engagement sessions are also being held with the state governments to achieve the set target.

"For the interior areas, operational work has been organised, and communication and coordination with state governments have been established through engagement sessions.

"We have held meetings in the state data statistics council platform chaired by the Premier (of Sarawak), Chief Ministers or Menteris Besars, and also through the state secretaries.

"We also had the same at the district level and had contact with village heads and community leaders. This means that efforts to implement the 'whole of nation' approach have been implemented,” he said.

He said that so far, the feedback received from the State Statistics Departments and field staff regarding the acceptance of the system in rural areas has been positive, aided by information dissemination efforts carried out by the Information Department (JaPen).

"We also cooperate with JaPen through the implementation of the Info On Wheels programme, where they go out to disseminate information on PADU and the like. So, the publicity is widespread and we can say the developments these two days have been positive," he said.

As of 8pm on Jan 3, Padu has recorded 396,181 registrations by users.

On the feedback received from several quarters, especially regarding security, Mohd Uzir said the system was developed internally, making it agile and easy to upgrade to ensure the best service delivery to the community.

"In terms of the development philosophy for this system, we welcome public feedback. Actually, it is a process for us to inculcate the digital culture among people and intellectuals in the country, where positive feedback can be used.

"This is the beauty of a system developed internally, as it has the agility to allow improvements to be constantly made based on genuine feedback,” he added.

Padu was developed with internal expertise in the Economy Ministry, Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) and Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu), with the cooperation and support of various ministries, agencies and state governments. - BERNAMA