E-governance and Bangladesh
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Md Anwarul Iqbal
With the advent of Internet technology, in the early part of the last decade, the developed countries coined the concept of e-governance. Policy makers of the developed countries utilised the new developments in ICT and especially the TCP/IP protocol, in achieving the objectives of good governance. So, the term e-Governance can be defined as efficient and effective use of modern ICT technology for good governance in any country. E-governance can also be defined as Electronic State Management System based on information and communication technologies (ICT), including the Internet technology.
The ultimate objective of e-Governance is to establish good governance. The attributes of good governance can be identified as follows: honesty, efficiency, effectiveness (in terms of time, space and money), fairplay, reliability, participatory democracy, accountability, accessibility, transparency, equity and vision in decision making. All these can be achieved through proper implementation of e-governance using the state of the art technologies.
Corruption in the public sector has dramatically fallen in the countries, which adopted e-Governance. A survey in India shows that the states, where e-governance has been established even partially, the corruption rate has dramatically come down. The survey found that in Kolkata and Mumbai, due to adoption of e-Governance, the corruption rate declined, in some of the public sector organisations, to 19 per cent and 18 per cent compared to 51 per cent and 38 per cent respectively in 2000. In Bangladesh, computerisation of Railway Reservation System, black-marketing of tickets has significantly gone down.
Elimination of the middle men in citizen-government interaction can eradicate corruption. If people interact with the government offices through web-page, colonial red tapes practices can be totally eliminated. This in turn will reduce all pervasive bribery in government offices.
The computerisation speeds up performance. It is also reliable, efficient and effective. With e-Governance in place, any citizen can easily apply for, using his digital signature and citizenship identifier, and get a new passport in 24 hours without paying extra charges or facing the usual hassle. An integrated e-Government system, can simplify police verification, validation of birth certificate to speed up issuance of new passports. E-Governance can integrate all the departments of the government. Under it, when a citizen applies for a passport through Website of the passport and immigration department, the data given by the applicant can be cross-checked by the relevant departments instantly for validation. As for example, it makes police clearance much easier by the cross checking data given by the applicant. Almost in no time police can send the report, either positive or negative, to the server of the Passport and Immigration Department. The Passport and Immigration Department can then easily decide whether or not the applicant is eligible to get a new passport. Even the printing of the passports can be automated. E-governance would thus eliminate the middleman as well as corruption and hassles in getting passports.
E-governance facilitates active participation of the citizens in the process of establishing democracy. The unfortunates Phulbari incident over coal mine contract with Asia Energy could be avoided if e-Governance was there in the country. Before making the contract, the government could seek the local people's opinion on this issue through the website. Website discussion groups could formed on the issue. And it would enable the government to be transparent in decision making. The citizens' active participation would facilitate pro-people positive decision making. It would make it easier for the government to better evaluate the country's resource constraints, local environment and other socio-political issues before taking a decision.
E-Governance can strengthen the democratic system. For instance, in an e-Governance environment, a political party can better choose a competent candidate for nomination in election. Through the Website, the party can seek the opinion of the citizens on an issue or on the candidates. This selection will reflect the opinion of the common citizens and reduce the influence of black money in candidate selection.
E-governance can eliminate wastage of public money as well as the errors in preparing the voters' list. In e-Governance, all the citizens' database is one of the vital components. It can, therefore, generate a flawless unbiased list of voters, with updates like age, present address without spending additional money or time.
Accessibility to information is the prime advantage of e-governance. The citizen must have access to e-Governance. Availability and non-availability of information creates the digital gap between different segments of citizens in a society. It is the one of the major causes of social injustice and lack of equity. If everybody gets similar accessibility the class distance can be minimised between different social groups in a country.
It is no good to do little and talk much. But, that is what is done. When e-Commerce was getting popular, many of the ICT companies in Bangladesh hosted seminars, and workshops. They persuaded the government policymakers to be proactive. The government, in 2001, formed an ICT Task Force headed by the then prime minister for introducing e-Governance in Bangladesh. Everyone expected the government to adopt e-Governance overnight. But in five years, no significant progress could be achieved. Other than Planning Commission and the ministry of finance, no other ministry could, so far, make much headway in adopting the system even for their internal use. Some ministries like the Ministry of Science and Technology have created static Websites with no scope for active participation of the interested citizens. Moreover, as these Websites are not updated regularly, they mislead the public with backdated information.
In e-Governance, all governmental organisations can be interconnected through the wide area network. This connectivity facilitates exchange of information among different government departments, without any manual intervention. This requires IOS (Inter Organisational Systems) or EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) software. Unfortunately, so far, government departments are using the software that does not support inter-departmental or inter-organisational data sharing.
Some ministries or government sectors are using computers as word processors. It is not e-Governance. Bangladesh has to go a long way in adopting e-Governance. It is true that available resources are inadequate for e-Governance. The low fixed telephone density is a major barrier to digital communication, which paves way for Internet communication. However, rapid growth of mobile telephone network can overcome this barrier. Besides, Bangladesh can utilise its underutilized optic fibre network of the railway department for the purpose. Used properly, the submarine cable connection can play a significant role in global connectivity from Bangladesh.
For establishing e-Governance in Bangladesh, ICT infrastructure needs to be developed step by step up to the village level, following a road map or master plan. The limited resources in that case would not be a barrier.
Decentralisation of database is an essential feature of e-Governance. Decentralised or localised database ensures autonomy and reduces over loading of the communication network. Keeping this in mind, Bangladesh needs to design its e-Governance road-map. There is a need to prioritise the sectors of the government to be addressed first. For good governance, local government is vital and crucial. So, e-Governance in Bangladesh should connect the upazilas first. Perhaps, a bottom-up approach or starting from the upazila, should be the appropriate strategy in a country like Bangladesh, where the majority of the population lives in the countryside.
Money should not be a problem if the government is really keen on utilising the available resources in a planned way. In that case, funding for e-Governance should not be a big problem. For instance, the software procurement cost could be reduced by using free software for developing the modules for e-Governance. Besides, funding from the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), who support ICT projects of the government, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), European Union (EU) or other sources should not be a difficult proposition. The government could approach Microsoft as well for the purpose. Bill Gates has already dedicated much of his wealth to supporting philanthropic works. He is well aware that e-Governance will bring equity and social justice by reducing the digital gap between different social segments in any country. If the government requests Bill Gates he will not hesitate to assist technologically backward countries.
Besides, Bangladesh can utilise its manpower resources, especially the new generation, for its e-Governance project. But, the government needs to be honest and transparent, to have a stable policy for the future.
The writer is an assistant professor of computer science, AIUB and Member, British Computer Society, the UK
With the advent of Internet technology, in the early part of the last decade, the developed countries coined the concept of e-governance. Policy makers of the developed countries utilised the new developments in ICT and especially the TCP/IP protocol, in achieving the objectives of good governance. So, the term e-Governance can be defined as efficient and effective use of modern ICT technology for good governance in any country. E-governance can also be defined as Electronic State Management System based on information and communication technologies (ICT), including the Internet technology.
The ultimate objective of e-Governance is to establish good governance. The attributes of good governance can be identified as follows: honesty, efficiency, effectiveness (in terms of time, space and money), fairplay, reliability, participatory democracy, accountability, accessibility, transparency, equity and vision in decision making. All these can be achieved through proper implementation of e-governance using the state of the art technologies.
Corruption in the public sector has dramatically fallen in the countries, which adopted e-Governance. A survey in India shows that the states, where e-governance has been established even partially, the corruption rate has dramatically come down. The survey found that in Kolkata and Mumbai, due to adoption of e-Governance, the corruption rate declined, in some of the public sector organisations, to 19 per cent and 18 per cent compared to 51 per cent and 38 per cent respectively in 2000. In Bangladesh, computerisation of Railway Reservation System, black-marketing of tickets has significantly gone down.
Elimination of the middle men in citizen-government interaction can eradicate corruption. If people interact with the government offices through web-page, colonial red tapes practices can be totally eliminated. This in turn will reduce all pervasive bribery in government offices.
The computerisation speeds up performance. It is also reliable, efficient and effective. With e-Governance in place, any citizen can easily apply for, using his digital signature and citizenship identifier, and get a new passport in 24 hours without paying extra charges or facing the usual hassle. An integrated e-Government system, can simplify police verification, validation of birth certificate to speed up issuance of new passports. E-Governance can integrate all the departments of the government. Under it, when a citizen applies for a passport through Website of the passport and immigration department, the data given by the applicant can be cross-checked by the relevant departments instantly for validation. As for example, it makes police clearance much easier by the cross checking data given by the applicant. Almost in no time police can send the report, either positive or negative, to the server of the Passport and Immigration Department. The Passport and Immigration Department can then easily decide whether or not the applicant is eligible to get a new passport. Even the printing of the passports can be automated. E-governance would thus eliminate the middleman as well as corruption and hassles in getting passports.
E-governance facilitates active participation of the citizens in the process of establishing democracy. The unfortunates Phulbari incident over coal mine contract with Asia Energy could be avoided if e-Governance was there in the country. Before making the contract, the government could seek the local people's opinion on this issue through the website. Website discussion groups could formed on the issue. And it would enable the government to be transparent in decision making. The citizens' active participation would facilitate pro-people positive decision making. It would make it easier for the government to better evaluate the country's resource constraints, local environment and other socio-political issues before taking a decision.
E-Governance can strengthen the democratic system. For instance, in an e-Governance environment, a political party can better choose a competent candidate for nomination in election. Through the Website, the party can seek the opinion of the citizens on an issue or on the candidates. This selection will reflect the opinion of the common citizens and reduce the influence of black money in candidate selection.
E-governance can eliminate wastage of public money as well as the errors in preparing the voters' list. In e-Governance, all the citizens' database is one of the vital components. It can, therefore, generate a flawless unbiased list of voters, with updates like age, present address without spending additional money or time.
Accessibility to information is the prime advantage of e-governance. The citizen must have access to e-Governance. Availability and non-availability of information creates the digital gap between different segments of citizens in a society. It is the one of the major causes of social injustice and lack of equity. If everybody gets similar accessibility the class distance can be minimised between different social groups in a country.
It is no good to do little and talk much. But, that is what is done. When e-Commerce was getting popular, many of the ICT companies in Bangladesh hosted seminars, and workshops. They persuaded the government policymakers to be proactive. The government, in 2001, formed an ICT Task Force headed by the then prime minister for introducing e-Governance in Bangladesh. Everyone expected the government to adopt e-Governance overnight. But in five years, no significant progress could be achieved. Other than Planning Commission and the ministry of finance, no other ministry could, so far, make much headway in adopting the system even for their internal use. Some ministries like the Ministry of Science and Technology have created static Websites with no scope for active participation of the interested citizens. Moreover, as these Websites are not updated regularly, they mislead the public with backdated information.
In e-Governance, all governmental organisations can be interconnected through the wide area network. This connectivity facilitates exchange of information among different government departments, without any manual intervention. This requires IOS (Inter Organisational Systems) or EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) software. Unfortunately, so far, government departments are using the software that does not support inter-departmental or inter-organisational data sharing.
Some ministries or government sectors are using computers as word processors. It is not e-Governance. Bangladesh has to go a long way in adopting e-Governance. It is true that available resources are inadequate for e-Governance. The low fixed telephone density is a major barrier to digital communication, which paves way for Internet communication. However, rapid growth of mobile telephone network can overcome this barrier. Besides, Bangladesh can utilise its underutilized optic fibre network of the railway department for the purpose. Used properly, the submarine cable connection can play a significant role in global connectivity from Bangladesh.
For establishing e-Governance in Bangladesh, ICT infrastructure needs to be developed step by step up to the village level, following a road map or master plan. The limited resources in that case would not be a barrier.
Decentralisation of database is an essential feature of e-Governance. Decentralised or localised database ensures autonomy and reduces over loading of the communication network. Keeping this in mind, Bangladesh needs to design its e-Governance road-map. There is a need to prioritise the sectors of the government to be addressed first. For good governance, local government is vital and crucial. So, e-Governance in Bangladesh should connect the upazilas first. Perhaps, a bottom-up approach or starting from the upazila, should be the appropriate strategy in a country like Bangladesh, where the majority of the population lives in the countryside.
Money should not be a problem if the government is really keen on utilising the available resources in a planned way. In that case, funding for e-Governance should not be a big problem. For instance, the software procurement cost could be reduced by using free software for developing the modules for e-Governance. Besides, funding from the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), who support ICT projects of the government, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), European Union (EU) or other sources should not be a difficult proposition. The government could approach Microsoft as well for the purpose. Bill Gates has already dedicated much of his wealth to supporting philanthropic works. He is well aware that e-Governance will bring equity and social justice by reducing the digital gap between different social segments in any country. If the government requests Bill Gates he will not hesitate to assist technologically backward countries.
Besides, Bangladesh can utilise its manpower resources, especially the new generation, for its e-Governance project. But, the government needs to be honest and transparent, to have a stable policy for the future.
The writer is an assistant professor of computer science, AIUB and Member, British Computer Society, the UK