Digital year
BANGLADESH is going to observe digital year in 2011 to mark the journey to Digital Bangladesh by 2021 as emphasised by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Finance Minister A.M.A. Muhith disclosed this recently while speaking as the chief guest at a roundtable organised by The Bangladesh Observer on "Roadmap for Digital Bangladesh."
The ministry of LGRD and cooperatives has taken up an initiative for setting up union information centres (UIC) in 1,000 more unions in the line with the government's vision to build Digital Bangladesh by 2001.
Earlier governments set up such information centres in 30 unions under joint initiative of the Access to Information (A21) Program of the prime minister's office and the National Institute of Local Government (NILG). The UNDP has been providing financial as well as technical assistance to this program.
The government's A21 program is a welcome development towards reaching ICT facilities to the doorsteps of rural people. The connectivity that would be achieved in the process will help to advance the country by several years. The village people will easily get information about agriculture, health, education, marketing and employment from the UICs.
The government has also moved to formulate new laws empowering an authority to set up six hi-tech parks with the aim of boosting foreign investment in the information and communication technology sector. India, China, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam have already made tremendous progress in the ICT sector through establishing hi-tech parks.
The science and information technology ministry has already prepared the draft of a "Hi-tech park authority Act-2009," which stipulates formation of a high-powered body to attract foreign investment and also to manage these specialised industrial parks.
The country's lone hi-tech park, set up at an estimated cost of Tk 9.38 crore at Kaliakoir in Gazipur, is likely to be launched in December next. A US-based ICT firm has expressed its interest to invest Tk 3 to 4 billion in the park to establish an ICT based university and a power plant and other infrastructure facilities, if the government allows it to run the park.
The Supreme Court (SC) is going to be digitalised soon. According to a newspaper report, all case-related information of the SC will be available in its website, and anyone from any part of the world will have access to it using the internet. The SC will also install five electronic display boards in its area so that the public can have information on running cases.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police is also going to install a hi-tech monitoring system in the central control room to make one-to-one contact with the on-duty police anywhere within the metropolitan area in order to make the police more efficient.
These are no doubt encouraging developments towards digitalisation of Bangladesh by 2021. But there is a sorry state of affairs in some other areas.
A recent sample survey by the planning ministry revealed that more than 88% of public offices have no officials to deal with ICT operations and 70% of the employees in government offices do not use computers. The situation is even worse in the commissions and corporations as 95% of these offices do not have ICT professionals. Digitalisation of Bangladesh will remain a distant dream if the government machinery is not properly digitalised.
The government installed a submarine cable at a cost of more than Tk 500 crore in 2005, and an impression was given that it would bring about a revolution in the ICT sector. Sadly, more than 70% capacity of the submarine cable is unused due to lack of vision in the policy makers.
The state minister for science and information communication technology has rightly stressed the need to make the youths computer literate, and urged the teachers to groom their students to take up the challenges of the new century through using computers.
Such a call is not only very timely but is also in conformity with the government's ambitious program for a Digital Bangladesh by 2021. But the imperative for making the youths computer literate calls for availability of computers in village schools and IT trained teachers.
The digital future presents Bangladesh with vast opportunities. But the most frustrating part of it is the frail state of our power sector. Bangladesh owes Tk 30,832 crore as debt-service liabilities for the power sector only, though such huge expenditure failed to yield any improvement in the sector.
Bangladesh faces a big challenge to cope with digital revolution. Only observance of digital year through holding seminars will not help to fulfill the promise of a Digital Bangladesh in any way. The ambitious dream for a Digital Bangladesh will remain a dream if the government cannot address the issue of power shortage and equip the people with the technology needed for using the potentialities of the digital era.
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