The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has unveiled a major initiative to curb tax evasion and reduce revenue leakage in Pakistan’s iron and steel industry through real-time production monitoring. This initiative will employ advanced technologies to ensure accurate tracking of steel production across the country.
Under the plan, steel manufacturers will provide infrastructure to support technology-agnostic solutions for monitoring production output. The project will cover both steel melting units and re-rolling units, capturing output from billets, ingots, rebars, girders, and sheets.
Selected vendors will deploy monitoring equipment, including video analytics cameras, laser counters, and IoT sensors, to record production data. The captured information will be transmitted to an Industrial PC, which will identify products, track weight or counts, and integrate the data with FBR databases. The system will use visual recognition, unique product identifiers, and weight measurements to ensure complete traceability of all steel products nationwide.
Vendors will also be required to demonstrate system accuracy under real-world industrial conditions, including high-temperature and dusty environments. Additionally, they must provide ongoing technical support, maintenance, and software updates to maintain operational reliability.
The procurement process for this initiative will follow the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) Two-Stage Bidding Procedure. Installations are expected to begin within two weeks of issuing purchase orders. The monitoring system will be implemented across all stages of production, including raw material preparation, iron making, steel production, rolling, and forming facilities. It will cover a wide range of products, such as billets, slabs, ingots, rebars, wire, sheets, pipes, and direct reduced iron (DRI).
The FBR’s real-time monitoring system aims to improve transparency, enhance tax compliance, and minimize revenue leakage in Pakistan’s steel industry—a critical sector for the country’s economic growth. By adopting modern tracking technologies and integrating them with regulatory databases, the initiative is expected to strengthen oversight and ensure accurate reporting of production outputs nationwide.
This move signals a significant step toward digital enforcement and compliance in Pakistan’s industrial sectors, aligning with broader government objectives to enhance fiscal discipline and formalize key manufacturing industries.
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