e-governance can enhance efficiency, productivity and transparency
Monday, 29 March 2010
Shihabuddin Mahmud and
Tahmina Afroz Momen
THERE has been an explosion of information, offering opportunities for acquiring knowledge and doing research in all disciplines. People have access to libraries, books and journals through internet. Distance education and virtual teachers are made possible widely by using ICT. In Bangladesh, education and research can get a strong boost by exploiting all these opportunities, but the basic barrier is education and lack of knowledge in English language, which is essential for internet.
Electronic governance or e-governance is much talked about in this information age. In Bangladesh, it can make the government more efficient, transparent and effective. Besides, it can generate all experienced IT workforce which will not only help generate revenue within the country but can fetch huge amount of foreign exchange from abroad. Although the ultimate hope of IT revolution depends on private enterprise, it is the introduction of e-governance that can trigger the IT revolution in the country as it covers all sectors and the whole country. In e-governance, the government can give information to public and public call have access to important information and documents of the government. Public opinion may be sought on various issues as interaction between public and the government can be built through internets and websites. People can vent their grievances and lodge their complaints.
Through intranet the Prime Minister's office may be connected with all the ministries, and the ministries may be connected within themselves. The ministries and directorates can have connection with their departments throughout the country. Establishment ministry can have connection with DC offices which have connection with TNO offices. Through intranet the home ministry can be connected with BDR, coast guard and Ansar head quarters and SP offices which in turn can be connected with all thanas. Thanas can have information of all recorded crimes and investigation reports. Electronic databases may be used to store details of crimes committed, list of criminals along with their biometric signatures in the form of photographs and fingerprints. Reliable biometric devices and related software are already available in the market.
The government should immediately take steps to create a Central Data Bank for the entire population. Electronic ID card should be made for each individual. That ID card can be used for voting, opening a bank account, having a license or passport, giving tax or income tax, for obtaining, job and so on. Various utility bills like power supply, water supply, gas supply and telecommucations can be paid by consumers through internet. They can interact with these utility agencies regarding faulty bills or other complaints. It has been estimated that if GrameenPhone run by local entrepreneurs and if each centre contains personal computers connected to GrameenPhone's existing GSM mobile network, which can be upgraded with EDGE technology to offer data transfer with a speed up to 128 kilobytes per second, it is possible to provide service nearly 15 villages containing 40,000 people and these centres will be located in each Upazilla, or sub-district, of Bangladesh as pointed out by Syed Yamin Bakht, General Manager, information Department, Grameen phone.
Videoconferencing to accelerate decision making, reducing the cost of travel and accommodation will result in huge cut in the cost of governance. Progress of different projects in distant places can be monitored from the capital city and divisional headquarters. Tender advertisement and bidding for government purchases can be done using the internet. Status of various projects of public interest could he displayed through a website. All information about different stages, starting, from the initial conception of a project to approval of the project, floating of tender documents and ending up with the awarding of the contract to the bidder could be made available to the general public for the sake of transparency. Advertisement for various posts in the government sector may be put up on the website of the ministry concerned and candidates may apply through internet.
Bangladesh has great potentialities for earning cores of dollars in foreign currency by providing ICT-enabled services to the foreign buyers. Bangladesh has a time difference of twelve hours with North America and other main markets which make possible easy delivery of ICT enabled services. Availability of large number of computer-trained young people with English background on the one hand and cheap wage of the trained manpower on the other can put Bangladesh in an advantageous position. Political will of the government manifested in the declaration of lCT as a 'Thrust Sector' and its desire to turn Bangladesh into an ICT driven country will definitely help. The prospective ICT enabled services are call centres, medical transcription. data entry, back office processing, insurance claim processing, engineering design, translation, animation and many things more.
There can be transparency in land registration if the whole process of' registration is computerised. Through Geographic Information System or GIS, with the click of a point on the map information about land, terrain, climate, agriculture, oil, gas, coal, transport, development and demography can be obtained. GIS can be utilised effectively by various ministries.
Rural economy and health and the impact of e-service
Rural economy and health care can be substantially improved with the application of ICT. Farmers can have continued specific advice regarding fertilizers, choice of crops and timing of sowing for their individual plots. They can learn relevant technology. Growers can know the current prices of vegetables, fruits etc. throughout the country and can make their strategy for timing and place for sale of their products, by the help of internet and they know about the market strategies and act accordingly.
Telemedicine or e-health care has a great future in Bangladesh. Patients in the remote places can consult the doctors over the internet. In the future distant analysis/transmission may be possible. Using teleimedicine, doctors and other caregivers can consult with specialists thousands of miles away, provide diagnosis and treatment, continually upgrade their education and skills; and share medical records and X-rays. Telemedicine or e-health care can be of great help for the health of the rural people. A village can be linked to the health services available inside and outside the country.
Fertiliser in rural Bangladesh is perhaps the most important issue now as the major income and GDP/GNP depends on the agricultural products and crops. How to get the fertilizer in the right time of the year and the how one can reserve the amount needed all can be traced if some data base is developed. The grassroots villagers can trace all the information and it will be transparent.
Taking the advantage of nationwide infrastructure in telecommunication, IT enabled services could be set up in rural areas. Businesses will take the advantage of low cost of office space and lower wages. Standard of living in rural areas will grow. Educated rural youths will get employment. This will help lower the rate of migration to big cities. Education and training, therefore, must be given the top priority if advantages of ICTs are to be harnessed. Grameen Phone has another internationally acclaimed initiative called the village phone programme with universal access to telecommunication services are provided in rural areas to people who cannot afford to pay a regular subscription. The programme also offers the village phone operators, mostly poor village women, a good income-earning opportunity. Presently, there are more than 255,000 village phones in operation in 55,000 villages in Bangladesh. It has been replicated in some other countries including in Uganda and Rwanda in Africa.
Basic problem is that "we are poor because we simply don't have access to the information." Information is power. Unfortunately a poor person in Bangladesh perhaps spends more for a doctor than a person live in the city due to lack of information and they spend lots of money on travelling to cities for treatment. Due to lack of information these villagers always tries to get help from a middle man who are usually dishonest, thus the price is high for them. Through the internet they can get help directly from the doctor and can get appointment, and even can get enough knowledge about the diseases.
Poverty elimination is another important aspect. Micro credit and micro finance is another important medium by which Grameen Bank of Professor Yunus has already proved, whose model is now being replicated by many third world countries even in some first world countries.
Another major barrier is the language and illiteracy rate. One good news is that the new generation is much more educated. Besides, girls are getting more education and they are more enthusiastic to learn. They also like to know about computer and internet. Mobile phone has made a revolution in rural Bangladesh first by Grameen Phone and later by other service providers.
The prospect of using IT for village women in different sector
The most important objective is to achieve information fast in a transparent way without obligating by middlemen. Now, in Bangladesh there are only 17 organisations that came under the same umbrella for ICT in rural Bangladesh and it is expected that this number will reach 250 by the end of 2008. The computers in the centres covered to date are used by an average of 30 people a day, who pay a small fee to access email or web pages. Bangladeshis use the centres for a wide variety of business and personal purposes, from accessing health and agricultural information to using government services to video conferencing with relatives overseas. GrameenPhone trains the entrepreneurs so that they can give people advice on how to set up an email account and make best use of the Internet.
Now, it is sole responsibility of the government to make people aware of the benefit of such information. How to provide the information? There are 70,000 villages in Bangladesh and if the computer and internet connections just by dial-up can be provided, it is possible to connect all the villages with each other and in addition it could be connected with the higher authorities. The information needed can be prompt and there will be no bureaucracy and red tape with the government and the stakeholders. Moreover, TV is also an important media by which lots of information can be provided. Unfortunately, excepting one all the channels are private and they are profit maximising organisations. For this sector to develop, there can be resolution from the government to cover three important areas/ programmes that benefit the rural societies in general and these should be informative, educative and, of course, recreational.
The issue is to provide its services and the involvement of rural women who would be able to economically independent and use it for their benefits. Basically, rural women in Bangladesh make a living on agricultural activities and fully depend on their male counterparts. With the help of internet, they would be more knowledgeable about what to grow and when and how to communicate with the buyer and companies for selling their products. Channel i has a programme named "Matee O Manush" which extensively gives information on agriculture, research, products, lifestyle of farmers and their activities. It has already drawn public attentions.
Amader Gram is another organisation collecting all important information regarding demography, socio-economic structure about the villages. These data base will be very necessary, even the election commission can get all the information from them. The recent activities about the national identity card and digital information about the citizens is one good step that the caretaker government had taken.
Here the content is important. How the data base will be created. What are the information that should be collected and, of course, the authenticity of the information has to be there. The recently established incubation centre at Karwanbazar, Dhaka, with data transmission facility and uninterrupted electric supply will attract companies involved in software and IT enabled services to start their business from the centre. The nation is now eagerly waiting for the establishment of the High Tech Park with all modern infrastructural facilities planned at Kaliakair near Dhaka, which will be a milestone in IT industry, high tech industry and R&D in Bangladesh.
The UN has already declared that by 2015 the world will be an information society. Everybody will be interlinked.
(Dr. Mahmud is an Assistant Professor, College of Architecture and Planning, King Faisal University, KSA, and Tahmina Afroz Momen is a teacher in a school in Dhamam, KSA.)
Tahmina Afroz Momen
THERE has been an explosion of information, offering opportunities for acquiring knowledge and doing research in all disciplines. People have access to libraries, books and journals through internet. Distance education and virtual teachers are made possible widely by using ICT. In Bangladesh, education and research can get a strong boost by exploiting all these opportunities, but the basic barrier is education and lack of knowledge in English language, which is essential for internet.
Electronic governance or e-governance is much talked about in this information age. In Bangladesh, it can make the government more efficient, transparent and effective. Besides, it can generate all experienced IT workforce which will not only help generate revenue within the country but can fetch huge amount of foreign exchange from abroad. Although the ultimate hope of IT revolution depends on private enterprise, it is the introduction of e-governance that can trigger the IT revolution in the country as it covers all sectors and the whole country. In e-governance, the government can give information to public and public call have access to important information and documents of the government. Public opinion may be sought on various issues as interaction between public and the government can be built through internets and websites. People can vent their grievances and lodge their complaints.
Through intranet the Prime Minister's office may be connected with all the ministries, and the ministries may be connected within themselves. The ministries and directorates can have connection with their departments throughout the country. Establishment ministry can have connection with DC offices which have connection with TNO offices. Through intranet the home ministry can be connected with BDR, coast guard and Ansar head quarters and SP offices which in turn can be connected with all thanas. Thanas can have information of all recorded crimes and investigation reports. Electronic databases may be used to store details of crimes committed, list of criminals along with their biometric signatures in the form of photographs and fingerprints. Reliable biometric devices and related software are already available in the market.
The government should immediately take steps to create a Central Data Bank for the entire population. Electronic ID card should be made for each individual. That ID card can be used for voting, opening a bank account, having a license or passport, giving tax or income tax, for obtaining, job and so on. Various utility bills like power supply, water supply, gas supply and telecommucations can be paid by consumers through internet. They can interact with these utility agencies regarding faulty bills or other complaints. It has been estimated that if GrameenPhone run by local entrepreneurs and if each centre contains personal computers connected to GrameenPhone's existing GSM mobile network, which can be upgraded with EDGE technology to offer data transfer with a speed up to 128 kilobytes per second, it is possible to provide service nearly 15 villages containing 40,000 people and these centres will be located in each Upazilla, or sub-district, of Bangladesh as pointed out by Syed Yamin Bakht, General Manager, information Department, Grameen phone.
Videoconferencing to accelerate decision making, reducing the cost of travel and accommodation will result in huge cut in the cost of governance. Progress of different projects in distant places can be monitored from the capital city and divisional headquarters. Tender advertisement and bidding for government purchases can be done using the internet. Status of various projects of public interest could he displayed through a website. All information about different stages, starting, from the initial conception of a project to approval of the project, floating of tender documents and ending up with the awarding of the contract to the bidder could be made available to the general public for the sake of transparency. Advertisement for various posts in the government sector may be put up on the website of the ministry concerned and candidates may apply through internet.
Bangladesh has great potentialities for earning cores of dollars in foreign currency by providing ICT-enabled services to the foreign buyers. Bangladesh has a time difference of twelve hours with North America and other main markets which make possible easy delivery of ICT enabled services. Availability of large number of computer-trained young people with English background on the one hand and cheap wage of the trained manpower on the other can put Bangladesh in an advantageous position. Political will of the government manifested in the declaration of lCT as a 'Thrust Sector' and its desire to turn Bangladesh into an ICT driven country will definitely help. The prospective ICT enabled services are call centres, medical transcription. data entry, back office processing, insurance claim processing, engineering design, translation, animation and many things more.
There can be transparency in land registration if the whole process of' registration is computerised. Through Geographic Information System or GIS, with the click of a point on the map information about land, terrain, climate, agriculture, oil, gas, coal, transport, development and demography can be obtained. GIS can be utilised effectively by various ministries.
Rural economy and health and the impact of e-service
Rural economy and health care can be substantially improved with the application of ICT. Farmers can have continued specific advice regarding fertilizers, choice of crops and timing of sowing for their individual plots. They can learn relevant technology. Growers can know the current prices of vegetables, fruits etc. throughout the country and can make their strategy for timing and place for sale of their products, by the help of internet and they know about the market strategies and act accordingly.
Telemedicine or e-health care has a great future in Bangladesh. Patients in the remote places can consult the doctors over the internet. In the future distant analysis/transmission may be possible. Using teleimedicine, doctors and other caregivers can consult with specialists thousands of miles away, provide diagnosis and treatment, continually upgrade their education and skills; and share medical records and X-rays. Telemedicine or e-health care can be of great help for the health of the rural people. A village can be linked to the health services available inside and outside the country.
Fertiliser in rural Bangladesh is perhaps the most important issue now as the major income and GDP/GNP depends on the agricultural products and crops. How to get the fertilizer in the right time of the year and the how one can reserve the amount needed all can be traced if some data base is developed. The grassroots villagers can trace all the information and it will be transparent.
Taking the advantage of nationwide infrastructure in telecommunication, IT enabled services could be set up in rural areas. Businesses will take the advantage of low cost of office space and lower wages. Standard of living in rural areas will grow. Educated rural youths will get employment. This will help lower the rate of migration to big cities. Education and training, therefore, must be given the top priority if advantages of ICTs are to be harnessed. Grameen Phone has another internationally acclaimed initiative called the village phone programme with universal access to telecommunication services are provided in rural areas to people who cannot afford to pay a regular subscription. The programme also offers the village phone operators, mostly poor village women, a good income-earning opportunity. Presently, there are more than 255,000 village phones in operation in 55,000 villages in Bangladesh. It has been replicated in some other countries including in Uganda and Rwanda in Africa.
Basic problem is that "we are poor because we simply don't have access to the information." Information is power. Unfortunately a poor person in Bangladesh perhaps spends more for a doctor than a person live in the city due to lack of information and they spend lots of money on travelling to cities for treatment. Due to lack of information these villagers always tries to get help from a middle man who are usually dishonest, thus the price is high for them. Through the internet they can get help directly from the doctor and can get appointment, and even can get enough knowledge about the diseases.
Poverty elimination is another important aspect. Micro credit and micro finance is another important medium by which Grameen Bank of Professor Yunus has already proved, whose model is now being replicated by many third world countries even in some first world countries.
Another major barrier is the language and illiteracy rate. One good news is that the new generation is much more educated. Besides, girls are getting more education and they are more enthusiastic to learn. They also like to know about computer and internet. Mobile phone has made a revolution in rural Bangladesh first by Grameen Phone and later by other service providers.
The prospect of using IT for village women in different sector
The most important objective is to achieve information fast in a transparent way without obligating by middlemen. Now, in Bangladesh there are only 17 organisations that came under the same umbrella for ICT in rural Bangladesh and it is expected that this number will reach 250 by the end of 2008. The computers in the centres covered to date are used by an average of 30 people a day, who pay a small fee to access email or web pages. Bangladeshis use the centres for a wide variety of business and personal purposes, from accessing health and agricultural information to using government services to video conferencing with relatives overseas. GrameenPhone trains the entrepreneurs so that they can give people advice on how to set up an email account and make best use of the Internet.
Now, it is sole responsibility of the government to make people aware of the benefit of such information. How to provide the information? There are 70,000 villages in Bangladesh and if the computer and internet connections just by dial-up can be provided, it is possible to connect all the villages with each other and in addition it could be connected with the higher authorities. The information needed can be prompt and there will be no bureaucracy and red tape with the government and the stakeholders. Moreover, TV is also an important media by which lots of information can be provided. Unfortunately, excepting one all the channels are private and they are profit maximising organisations. For this sector to develop, there can be resolution from the government to cover three important areas/ programmes that benefit the rural societies in general and these should be informative, educative and, of course, recreational.
The issue is to provide its services and the involvement of rural women who would be able to economically independent and use it for their benefits. Basically, rural women in Bangladesh make a living on agricultural activities and fully depend on their male counterparts. With the help of internet, they would be more knowledgeable about what to grow and when and how to communicate with the buyer and companies for selling their products. Channel i has a programme named "Matee O Manush" which extensively gives information on agriculture, research, products, lifestyle of farmers and their activities. It has already drawn public attentions.
Amader Gram is another organisation collecting all important information regarding demography, socio-economic structure about the villages. These data base will be very necessary, even the election commission can get all the information from them. The recent activities about the national identity card and digital information about the citizens is one good step that the caretaker government had taken.
Here the content is important. How the data base will be created. What are the information that should be collected and, of course, the authenticity of the information has to be there. The recently established incubation centre at Karwanbazar, Dhaka, with data transmission facility and uninterrupted electric supply will attract companies involved in software and IT enabled services to start their business from the centre. The nation is now eagerly waiting for the establishment of the High Tech Park with all modern infrastructural facilities planned at Kaliakair near Dhaka, which will be a milestone in IT industry, high tech industry and R&D in Bangladesh.
The UN has already declared that by 2015 the world will be an information society. Everybody will be interlinked.
(Dr. Mahmud is an Assistant Professor, College of Architecture and Planning, King Faisal University, KSA, and Tahmina Afroz Momen is a teacher in a school in Dhamam, KSA.)