All about one-stop service
Friday, 1 October 2010
Your recent editorial -- Building capacities for greater tax collection -- comes as a forewarning. What the one-stop service means is not clear. It refers to the past practices that really did not work.
Board of Investment (BoI), launched one stop service (OSS), in 1998 -- a single window of contact supposedly consisting of nine agencies, most important of those being the Bangladesh Bank, National Board of Revenue (NBR) and the Department of Environment. The main purpose was to facilitate foreign private investment. Obtaining clearance on environmental concern prior to investment became a long-drawn painful process. But the foreign entrepreneurs labeled this as a 'multi-stop centre' where one had to resort to bribery, a kind of service charge, to get an environmental clearance.
BoI-OSS was unable to provide telephone connection to an investing company as there was no officer for this function. Similar was the situation in the case of getting electricity connection. Most importantly, in the last five years no officer was deputed from NBR to BoI-OSS to provide counseling to investors about tax holiday and other facilities. Some investors got no information on taxation related to investment.
Different utility service providers were absent at the center, and those officers who were posted had to work under the restricted authority of parental department.
More recently GrameenPhone Centre (GPC) serves as one-stop solution for customers, with telecommunication products and services, under a single roof. There are 76 such centres, and more out of the metropolitan area, are being franchised. The customers who contact these supposedly hassle-free one-stop centres mostly return frustrated.
Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institute, (BSTI) in 2008 planned to set up one-stop centre in its regional offices for better control on qualities. How far the one-stop center would facilitate this endeavour is not quite clear.
In 2008 USAID programme mounted the one-stop health services to improve the quality of life for the poor, aimed at covering 13% of rural-urban population, through 318 full-time community clinics, more than 8000 associated satellite clinic sites, and 6000 rural community volunteers.
Farida Shaikh
Dhaka
(E-mail: farida_s9@optimaxbd.net)
Board of Investment (BoI), launched one stop service (OSS), in 1998 -- a single window of contact supposedly consisting of nine agencies, most important of those being the Bangladesh Bank, National Board of Revenue (NBR) and the Department of Environment. The main purpose was to facilitate foreign private investment. Obtaining clearance on environmental concern prior to investment became a long-drawn painful process. But the foreign entrepreneurs labeled this as a 'multi-stop centre' where one had to resort to bribery, a kind of service charge, to get an environmental clearance.
BoI-OSS was unable to provide telephone connection to an investing company as there was no officer for this function. Similar was the situation in the case of getting electricity connection. Most importantly, in the last five years no officer was deputed from NBR to BoI-OSS to provide counseling to investors about tax holiday and other facilities. Some investors got no information on taxation related to investment.
Different utility service providers were absent at the center, and those officers who were posted had to work under the restricted authority of parental department.
More recently GrameenPhone Centre (GPC) serves as one-stop solution for customers, with telecommunication products and services, under a single roof. There are 76 such centres, and more out of the metropolitan area, are being franchised. The customers who contact these supposedly hassle-free one-stop centres mostly return frustrated.
Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institute, (BSTI) in 2008 planned to set up one-stop centre in its regional offices for better control on qualities. How far the one-stop center would facilitate this endeavour is not quite clear.
In 2008 USAID programme mounted the one-stop health services to improve the quality of life for the poor, aimed at covering 13% of rural-urban population, through 318 full-time community clinics, more than 8000 associated satellite clinic sites, and 6000 rural community volunteers.
Farida Shaikh
Dhaka
(E-mail: farida_s9@optimaxbd.net)