IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his budget for next year proposed to set up Nenasala centers in every Grama Niladari division as a special project to broaden the access to IT facilities.

The 2013 budget has allocated 750 million rupees to set up an ICT center in each of 14,000 Grama Niladari (village officer) areas of the country.

The two awards bagged by Sri Lanka come respectively under the ‘eGovernment’ category and the ‘Public Sector Organisation of the Year’ category.

The ‘eGovernment’ award was for the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), or Visa Online of the Sri Lankan Department of Immigration and Emigration. The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) played a major role in this award-winning project – ‘Visa Online’.

The initiative stemmed from the need to address challenges posed by the lack of access to essential information needed to make well-informed decisions during critical situations.

Also, according to ICTA’s e-Society Programme Head, Chitranganie Mubarak, the competition offers eight categories to compete in: e-Government and Institutions, e-Health and Environment, e-Learning and Education, e-Entertainment and Games, e-Culture and National Heritage, e-Science and Technology, e-Business and Commerce, and e-Inclusion and Participation.

That has been one of the crucial factors for the citizens to stick to private sector products and services as much as they can. There are many instances that we face difficulties in finding the correct person who handles the matters and most of the time people send from pillar to post when it comes to documentation. People are getting lost in the process and ultimately waste money to get things done.

Certain Government institutions such as District Secretariat, Registrar General’s Department and Registrar of Motor Traffic Department have already been able to apply their skills to provide an efficient service to the public. Some institutions are yet to applied of computerized service even after obtaining the training, she added.

The critical success factor in becoming citizen centric is to understand citizens’ needs based on their intentions (i.e. fundamental life objectives that are meaningful to citizens and businesses) as opposed to focusing purely on products and services the government offers. For example, a common set of needs for most citizens would include birth, death and marriage registration. If the different government agencies collaborate to provide the information through one integrated portal, it would be an effective means of enticing more citizens to use eGovernment services.

The policy, aimed at achieving overall development within Government organisations and delivery of Government services, was submitted to the cabinet by President Mahinda Rajapaksa and cabinet approval obtained early last month (2 December).

This new service will enable people to quickly get GN certificates that are needed for various purposes to prove their place of residence.

The Colombo district is ahead of other districts in using ICT for governance and this program will cover the whole district by 2012, Colombo Government Agent G. A. J. Sylvester told the Sunday Observer.

The one-day workshop organised by the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) at the Peacock Beach Hotel in Hambantota was the third in the series of 10 National Workshop on e-Government Policy aimed at familiarising Government institutional heads and chief innovative officers with the e-Government Policy.

The Secretary said that the foreign countries including ICT giant India had a lot of praise for Sri Lanka’s ICT achievements, the world awards won and Sri Lanka’s flagship project namely the Government Information Centre (1919).

It was stated that several countries were keen in emulating some of Sri Lanka’s projects and adopting them to suit their countries. These included the Government Information Centre and the Lanka Government Network which links all government institutions.

The first and second workshop of the series were held in Colombo and Kandy and the third is scheduled to be held in Colombo on June 29 again, a Senior ICTA Official told the Daily News.

In this respect, retired senior public servants like us are in a vantage position to have an overview of the larger picture by seeing it in the double light of how things functioned in our own time and how they function now.

This was stated by President's Secretary Lalith Weeratunga when he, as Chief Guest, addressed the ceremony for the launching of the eRevenue Licence held at the Western Province Department of Motor Traffic, Maligawatte recently.

Addressing the Commonwealth Health Ministers Conference, Minister de Silva said the development of health information systems and management information systems in hospitals are vital to sustainable development of health systems. Expanding e-health services in developing countries has been affected due to lack of bandwidth infrastructure around the country, especially in the rural areas where it could be most useful, Minister de Silva said.

Sri Lanka as a developing nation has to overcome a long-standing backwardness. The gap between it and developed countries has been widening. The technology gap is enormous. Its result has been further backwardness. The digital revolution has given an impetus to developed countries. At the same time a new digital divide has also arisen.

President pointed out that the Information and Communication Technology literacy stood at four per cent in 2004 and by today it has risen to well over 30 per cent. He further said that the government paid special attention on the education sector, highlighting the Information and Communication Technology.

We have consistently allocated resources to reach these levels. If you look at the rest of the world, not many countries can boast about a healthy literacy of their population. In the South Asian region, we have the best along with Maldives.