The prime need for making the government truly efficient and proactive is to ensure an optimum use of information and communication technology (ICT) in governance matters and service delivery at all levels. The policymakers do also appreciate this need. They are pledge-bound to transform Bangladesh into a digital one by the year 2021; they have already initiated a host of actions, including the preparation of an e-Government Master Plan, keeping this pledge in mind. This plan has been designed to cover proper digitisation of 52 ministries and divisions and 68 public sector departments and organisations. Enhancing the capacity of the government officials is the primary goal of the Master Plan, being drawn up with grant support of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (Koica). Here capacity-building is purported to ensuring better delivery of public services at a fast pace.
On its part, the government has undeniably been putting emphasis, particularly since the latter part of the last decade, on enhancing the capacity and efficiency level of public officials through extensive use of ICT. It is time now for making a dispassionate scrutiny of the progress that has so far been achieved in this particular area. There is no doubt about the government's sincerity to digitise its operations. But it must also be admitted that there is a serious lack of coordination in the digitisation efforts. Various agencies under its control are trying to make use of ICT according to their individual needs and choices. Such efforts, for all practical purposes, do not seem to be well-directed.
The process of digitising the administration and service delivery system did make some notable progress in recent years. But the fruits of such digitisation, in terms of delivery of different services, are unfortunately yet to reach, in a meaningful manner, the people living in districts and at grassroots. Moreover, some unscrupulous sections among the officials of a good number of government entities are tacitly resisting digitisation; they know it fully well that digitisation, once in place, would reduce the scope for demanding speed money from the service-seekers. Land offices can be cited as a glaring example here. A few activities of these offices have been digitised albeit at a very slow pace. Opportunities are still there to exploit the service-seekers since business in most other areas has been going on as usual.
The move to prepare an e-Governance Master Plan is, of course, a laudable one. But none can ignore the fact that ICT involves the use of quite a number of electronic gadgets and equipment. If the officials and employees operating those gadgets and equipment, being guided by narrow self-interest, are found unwilling to make available the benefits of automation to the people, then the very objective of the master plan would go unmet. So, it will be important to ensure real attitudinal changes among the public sector officials who are involved in service delivery. Also the need for increasing the level of people's access to the internet can hardly be overemphasised. The access of general population to internet needs to go up, in tandem with the government's efforts to digitise its operations. This will surely be of great use, in order to help ensure the best possible results from the e-governance move.
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Quelle/Source: The Financial Express, 02.11.2016
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