IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The department has cleared that schools identified for the first phase would receive ICT connectivity only after the schools submit their comprehensive report on specification, digitized contents and alternative energy supply.

The government is bucking up to unveil the Broadband Policy within this fiscal year. To finalise the much awaited policy, the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) has directed Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) to submit its draft within a month.

Even though the NTA had prepared the draft five years ago, the policy had been shelved due to ‘procedural delays’, which affected the development of broadband infrastructures and service expansion. Based on the instruction of MoIC, the telecom authority is revising the final draft by hiring an IT expert, Manohar Bhattarai.

The government is preparing to fix the minimum speed of broadband connection at 512 kilobytes per second (kbps) through the broadband policy, which is in the pipeline. This means a customer having broadband internet should not be provided speed less than that from its service provider.

As the government has neither defined broadband nor specified what the download and upload speeds have to be, internet service providers have the liberty of providing service by defining broadband speed on their own.

Technology use in communication has been accorded top priority by the researchers and scientists. In recent years, innovation in electronics and digital technology has made communication possible among people using mobile phones and the internet. In fact, a modern man starts and ends his day using communication gadgets whether it be a radio, television, mobile phone or the computer. At this stage of human civilization, life without the use of information and communication technology (ICT) is unimaginable.

Kathmandu Valley Development Authority has planned to improve upon the existing urban space into four ‘smart cities’ and moving fast to make it a reality on the ground level.

The Authority is all geared up to turn the capital city of Nepal into a smart city of international standard full of modern facilities and other amenities to give a high-class experience to city dwellers, visitors and tourists.

Under the project named the CityApp Kathmandu, CITYNET, the network of cities in the Asia Pacific, in partnership with Microsoft, is helping to develop technological solutions to urban challenges in the Kathmandu Valley.

The institutional mechanisms of Sri Lanka have been altered for rapid development of society using ICT. Since 2005, the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) has provided leadership in the application of ICT. Its “e-Sri Lanka” program has achieved major economic, developmental, and social improvements.

The entrepreneurs have alleged that the Malaysian government has introduced the biometric medical checkup system, effective from January 2, without any consultation with the concerned government bodies of Nepal, including Ministry of Labor and Employment (MoLE).

As per schedule, on Monday, NEFEMA will stage a protest against the Malaysian embassy in Pulchowk with placards and banners and submit a petition against the introduction of the bio-medical test system. Similarly, on Wednesday, it will stage a protest at Department of Foreign Employment in Tinkune.

Inaugurating a two-day conference on 'Mobile Technology for Smart Society' organised by the Computer Association of Nepal (CAN) here today, Minister Jha said increase in use of mobile computing raises few issues in terms of regulatory, social and security perspectives, which needs to be addressed.

"The woman´s condition was serious but the doctors were helpless," Dr Amit Pokhrel, a doctor at the hospital, said. He said that the dilemma before the hospital at the time was whether to refer the patient to the nearest referral center, which is more than eight hours away by an ambulance. The hospital refers complicated cases sometimes to a nearby hospital at Pithauragadh, India, but on that day it was already dark and the border was closed.

Electronic Governance, e-governance in short, refers to the use of Information Technology (IT) and computers by government to provide services to general public and business entities. It also involves the use of IT within government organizations in day-to-day functions.

In the context of Nepal, there has been some progress in e-governance in recent times, but we are still far behind developed countries in this regard.

The country has been producing more than 3,000 ICT graduates every year, he said in a programme organised by Computer Association of Nepal (CAN) here in the capital today. “It is the responsibility of the government and private sector to provide employment opportunities to these graduates.”

Addressing the launch of a magazine Living with ICT here in the Capital today, Thapa said IT should be developed as a separate and advanced industry to transform good governance into practice.

IT services should be used to eradicate poverty, said former minister for Science and Technology said Ganesh Sah, adding that a new Nepal would be prosperous only through adoption of e-governance. Similarly, Mukesh Regmi, ICT Chief Officer at the Prime Minister’s Office and the Council of Ministers, said a government policy that could properly handle the IT sector was in much need in the country.

Search for Common Ground-Nepal launched the country’s first governance mobile application, Singha Durbar, at the Next Growth Conclave 2017. The application aims to educate, aware, and inform the public on critical and important laws and policies on governance, a finger-tip version on federal structure, mobile readable version of Nepal’s constitution, and information on access to justice and legal services.

The application also includes a media player, where mobile users can watch the critically acclaimed Singha Durbar TV series, listen to ‘Gaun Gaun Ma Singha Durbar’ (Singha Durbar in Every Village), and Maithali language radio show ‘Sangor’ (Coming Together).

According to the Act, every office should appoint IOs to provide and manage information for public dissemination.

A study conducted by National Vigilance Centre made public today at a convention on Right to Information organised by Freedom Forum here in the capital revealed that there are only 351 IOs for 9,000 public offices.

Beginning Sunday, submitting household documents at the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) in person will be a thing of the past, metropolis officials claim. In a bid to be more efficient in service delivery, for the first time the government is incorporating digitigal technologies and processes into day-to-day operations at the KMC. All of the 35 ward offices of the KMC are introducing e-governance services from Sunday.

“We have taken it as a pilot project, and we will be upgrading things in need. It may take us some time to get the hang of it,” said Rudra Singh Tamang, chief and executive of the KMC.

With the government planning to start the issuance of biometric identity cards this fiscal, National ID Management Centre has stepped up its work to meet the target.

NIDMC, established under the Home Ministry to deal with the ID cards, has already completed orientation classes for computer operators at 75 districts administration offices.

According to NIDMC executive director Narendra Dahal, the centre has also conducted training for chief districts officers and Local Development Officers regarding the IDs. It has been allocating laptop computers to 38 district administration offices to store citizenship data which will be used in the ID.

“Broadband needs to be considered as basic national infrastructure as it will fundamentally reshape the world in the twenty-first century and change the way services are delivered — from the e-health to e-education to e-commerce,” said Sameer Sharma, senior adviser of International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific at a programme organised jointly by ITU and Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) here in the Valley.