BEYOND BUREAUCRACY: E-GOVERNANCE AND INTEGRATED DATABASES IN DIGITAL PAKISTAN

States around the globe, including Pakistan have shifted from traditional bureaucracies towards New Public Management (NPM) which advocates for digital transformations, particularly in the domain of e-governance required as an efficient public administration. This research paper examines Pakistan’s digital transformation by evaluating the maturity of e-governance and integrated databases within its Neo-Weberian public administration that synthesises NPM-style digital reforms with Weberian bureaucracy.  In doing so, it also explores the challenges and opportunities that exist for Pakistan’s digital transformation. For this purpose, the study takes a case study approach and focuses on the National Information Technology Board (NITB) as a case study by selecting four of its digital initiatives to further specify the scope. Using a qualitative approach, the study investigates the performance of these initiatives and their alignment with global e-governance standards, using Layne & Lee’s four-stage maturity model while relying on both primary and secondary data. The thematic analysis of this data reveals five major themes including efficiency and processing time in government services, cost reduction and operational challenges, citizen satisfaction and platform engagement, integration of government databases and institutional fragmentation, cybersecurity and data protection, providing valuable insights into Pakistan’s progress, challenges, and prospects in its pursuit of digital transformation.