Bangladesh Government has pledged “Digital Bangladesh by 2021” vision and is proceeded to mainstream ICTs as a pro-poor to eradicate poverty, establish good governance and ensure social equity. Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) and KOICA have jointly organized a seminar on “e-Government Master Plan for Digital Bangladesh” at Digital World-2017 on 8 December, 2017 at 10.30 am at Windy Town (First Floor), Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC), Dhaka.
Hon’ble State Minister of ICT Division attended as a chief guest, H.E. Mr. Ahn Seong-doo, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Bangladesh was the Guest of Honor & Mr. Swapan Kumar Sarker, Executive Director of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) was chair the Seminar.
Project Director of “e-Government Master Plan for Digital Bangladesh” Mr. Mohammad Manir Hossain has delivered welcome speech. In his speech the back-ground, objectives & components of the Master Plan project & Pilot project has been narrated.
H.E. Mr. Ahn Seong-doo, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Bangladesh assured to work together for the development of Bangladesh in ICT sector to achieve the goal “Digital Bangladesh”.
Hon’ble State Minister of ICT Division said that “In UN e-Government Survey 2016, revealed that the UK is No.1 and republic of Korea is No. 3. According to the report Bangladesh ranked 124th among 193 countries. Though it seems that Bangladesh is not in a very good position in the order but I think we are developing in this sector. To understand my preference I would better to provide you some previous ranking of this e-Government Survey.
Hon’ble State Minister also stated that he had learnt that the formulation of Masterplan involves a number of stages. In the first stage, consultation and survey was done with different Ministries, Divisions and Organizations. Based on the survey feedback and analysis, a number of project ideas will be generated. The current Masterplan project has scope for piloting one project.
However, he would strongly suggested piloting more than one project. While selecting project, please consider the needs of the citizen more than anything. Because the goal of our Government is to digitalize government services, but the real goal is to provide benefits to citizens with the services and make the citizens’ lives and interactions with the government easier, efficient and more simplified. Hence, participation of our Government officers in the process of formulation of masterplan is very important and critical.
We need a Master Plan to enhance ICT Sector and fulfill the vision 2021 of Bangladesh Government. He has given his cordial thanks to Republic of Korea & KOICA for their support to Bangladesh Government to establish“e-Government Master Plan for Digital Bangladesh”.
He also said – A Pilot Project named“Digital Municipality Services System Development” will beimplemented to 10 Municipalities as one of the top priority initiatives of“e-Government Master Plan”. The pilot project includes – i. online Water billing & holding tax service, ii. Online Councilor Certificate Service, iii. Automated Property Management Service&iv. e-Trade License Service. In near future we have plan to implement these services to all 328 Municipalities.
Overall Objectives of the Project are to:
Contribute to materializing Bangladesh government’s ‘Digital Bangladesh by 2021’ vision through establishing the e-Government Master Plan.