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.
Read more: NP: Kathmandu Valley to get four smart cities in five years
Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has said that the country has already moved ahead towards digital Nepal, e-governance and paperless technology.
Inaugurating the High Definition (HD) broadcasting of four channels of Nepal Television on the occasion of 34th anniversary of the state run TV station today, Prime Minister said that agriculture, industry, tourism, infrastructure development, energy, education and health sectors of Nepal would be modernised.
Read more: PM says Nepal has moved towards digitisation and e-governance
The government should make strengthening national broadband the prime objective
Nepal has embarked on an economic revolution to bring progress and prosperity after a successful transformation into a federal republic. Therefore, there is a great need for information communication and technology (ICT). ICT plays a significant role in education, health, tourism, employment, finance, agriculture and environmental conservation and promotion. The federal government and the private sector are yet to institutionalise and harness the tremendous benefits including competitive advantage of digital technology in terms of sustainable growth, objectivity and improved governance, and responsive service delivery.
Going digital is a necessity, but privacy and security concerns must be addressed
Back in May, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli made a bold statement—the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) would go paperless within six months. Following on that promise, the Cabinet held its first digital meeting in July, providing ample photo-ops of ministers sitting in front of brand new MacBooks.
Now, the Oli government has made yet another move towards going digital—all official correspondence and transactions will now start to take place through official government emails. While it might come as a surprise to many that official emails were not already being used, it appears that many civil servants were using personal Gmail and Hotmail accounts to correspond with superiors and colleagues. The vast majority, however, confined to paper. Civil servants will now be using email to correspond, seek leave and transfers, and communicate official activities, all under a legal rubric provided by a Cabinet meeting on October 28.
An advanced digital network and sustainable transport will change the society for the better
The second people’s movement of the 1990s brought an end to the Panchayat System paving the way for the multiparty democracy in Nepal. Around the same time, Estonia, a tiny country in Europe, gained independence from the mighty Soviet Union. In less than three decades after independence, Estonia has successfully established itself as one of the most advanced digital democracies in the world. It has built a digital society through an e-governnace system that provides public services online. Nepal, on the other hand, still remains one of the least developed countries in the world where digitisation has not yet taken pace. Now, the highly digitised Baltic democracy is making all public transportation in the country free. One should always get inspired by good examples and to that end, Nepal too could adopt the development model followed by Estonia.