Manager of Projects at the NISG Mr Amit Chakravarty (pic) spoke to the Sunday Bulletin in an interview Friday night at a dinner held at the residence of Acting Indian High Commissioner Mr Rakesh Kumar.
"The Government of India and the Government of Brunei have signed an agreement on cooperation in the areas of ICT," said Mr Chakravarty. "Under that agreement, AITI is the focal point for Brunei, and NISG is the focal point fox India."
He said that he'd been working with AITI (the Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry of Brunei), and that the first step was to draw up a project addendum.
"The project addendum lists out what areas under which we will cooperate, and what other activities that we can undertake," he said. "The four areas identified are e-government, education, industry and satellite technology.
"A preliminary list of activities has been identified for the cooperation, primarily from capacity building, so basically it's training and capacity building under these four areas."
Asked how productive his visit has been, he answered, "Extremely productive. We have drafted a project addendum, which will be approved by the ministries in both our countries, and EGNC (E-Government National Centre) seems quite keen on going ahead immediately. Even AITI is keen on starting off as soon as possible."
On exactly how this would benefit Brunei, he said, "The people of Brunei would really benefit because all the government services that the citizens are entitled to would be available in an efficient and very conservative manner, so once e-government is implemented, citizens would not have to approach any government offices, stand in a queue and wait at the counter - you can do all this through the Internet, because all the services will be available online."
"Right now what happens is, even to procure a form, you might have to go to a particular government agency, wait in a queue for maybe half an hour, get the form, drive back home, so that could involve maybe half a day for you," he continued. "However, once all these forms are available online, you can just fill them in online and send them to the government".
"So, from the comfort of your own home, you can conduct your interactions with the government. It's not only more efficient, but a more transparent process. You can even track where your file is online. For example, you apply for a passport or driving licence online. After 15 days, you've still not heard anything, so you can just go online to track where your passport or licence is.
"Right now to get your driving licence you have to go to one department, to get your passport you go to another department, to sort out your housing you have to go to a different department. Ideally, you should not be concerned about which department is handling what. You go online, and you do your business. At the back end what happens is sorted out internally between the government departments.
"Another aspect is that the industry has to be ready and geared up. The government cannot do everything. For example, if the government wants to set up an online passport application, then the industry has to be ready to develop the software for that," he said. "So it's the industry aspect that we are very strongly focusing on. The Public - Private Partnership (PPP) Model is very important here.
"Essentially, again, we are looking at capacity building initiatives, capacity building for satellite publication and for satellite data interpretation, because India has already launched a number of satellites, educational satellites, publication satellites, so Brunei is keen on utilising the expertise that India has on satellite technology."
"We are looking at exposing the students of UBD (Universiti Brunei Darussalam) and ITB (Institute of Technologi Brunei) to the new frontiers of satellite technology that are coming up, so
UBD and ITB are also involved. We are looking at the capacity building of students on satellite technology," he said.
"The students who come out will then be attracted towards e-governance and acquire, additional qualifications, and then they can serve the government and industry," he added. "So we're looking at a general, all-round capacity building all over the country, not just of the government variety, but more of a general capacity building for the country as a whole."
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Quelle/Source: Bru Direct, 05.09.2010
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