ICT development
The IT Policy had pledged to put Nepal on the global IT map within five years, but six years have already elapsed since the policy document was formulated. Ironically, Nepal is still rolling in the first stage of ICT development, according to the ICT indexes of the United Nations (UN) and the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA).
The master plan has a vision of taking Nepal into the third stage of ICT development within the next five years. The first stage marks the presence of government websites that offer basic and limited level of information in a static manner. The second stage is marked by the presence of an enhanced web, the third by an interactive web presence and the fourth by the integrative web presence. In the fourth stage, a knowledge-based government is established in which both citizens and businesses can get all the services they want regardless of where they are.
Realising the shortcomings of the policy, the government introduced an IT Policy (draft) in 2004 that has been pending since and is awaiting the approval of the cabinet. The draft policy conceives to transform Nepal into a knowledge-based society by 2015 to achieve the goals of good governance, poverty reduction and social and economic development.
The e-governance master plan, devised with the financial support and expertise of South Korea, envisages to create a paperless bureaucracy by 2011, bring greater coordination among the government agencies and facilitate them to take decisions on time through a wider Internet network. While preparing the plan, the United States, South Korea and India - all leading IT powerhouses - were taken as benchmarks. South Korea now ranks first in the e-Readiness indexes in the world.
Its strategy is to deliver administrative services in three categories - government to citizen (G2C), government to business (G2B) and government to government (G2G). The G2C aims at building a citizen-oriented civil service by providing online government services using ICT and diversifying the civil services channels. It recommends developing a national identification (NI) system, government portals, e-visa, e-pension e-post, e-agriculture, e-driver licence, e-election and so on.
While G2 B provides an one-stop public service - having integrated government administration information with businesses - to support economic activities on-line, G2G refers to standardising the government administration process and computerising both the administration and information to enhance effectiveness. e-Tax, e-Pollution, e-Education, e-Land, and e-Authentication are some of the projects towards meeting this end.
Given the poor ICT infrastructure, insufficient workforce, old mindset of the bureaucracy and cumbersome administrative working procedures, it is not easy to implement the plan. Currently more than 60 per cent of the population is deprived of electricity, while only 4 per cent of the total population has access to telephone services. There are 48,000 Internet subscribers and 240,000 Internet users, and the penetration rate of the PC stands at 6:2 units per 1,000 population. There are 4,000 ICT workers, and this number is expected to reach 7,335 by 2010.
According to a survey conducted among the decision makers and ICT staff in the government agencies, most of them cited insufficient professional workforce, financial problem, lack of infrastructure, absence of ICT organisation, inability to execute the plan, lack of transparency and cooperation among the government departments as the main obstacles to implementing the plan.
Apart from expanding the infrastructure and manpower base, the plan has suggested managing and measuring for its successful implementation. It recommends that the head of government must show a willingness to raise national competitiveness through e-government, organisational and institutional system for effective and continuous implementation of e-governance regardless of the change in regime. The leadership should introduce cutting edge technologies and foster the domestic ICT workforce and companies. In the measuring factors, there should be a review of implemented projects every two years in accordance with the technological developments and expansion of services.
Going by past experiences, we come across a disappointing scenario in the field of government-sponsored ICT development plans. Key ICT projects have been unable to achieve the set objectives. For examples, the government planned to set up 1,500 community tele-centres in 1,500 VDCs across the country within the 10th Plan. It has installed only around 250 such centres so far, although the 10th Plan period has already expired.
For their failure to execute projects, the government officials have a ready-made excuse - the Maoist insurgency. It is true that a few number of centres were the target of former Maoist rebels. But the reality is different. The government formulated the ambitious programme hoping that foreign assistance will come its way to establish the wider ICT network, but the potential donors failed to come up. Our policymakers often churn out plans without making a realistic assessment of the situation, which has a negative impact on the development prospects of the nation.
The current e-governance master plan might face a similar fate should the government and the donors fail to allocate the needed amount. More importantly, the old bureaucracy must be prepared to change. E-governance can be realised only when there is an ICT-friendly atmosphere and system in place. As suggested in the plan, the political leadership has a vital role in realising e-governance.
Political leadership Former presidents Kim Dae Jung of South Korea and Bill Clinton of the United States took revolutionary steps to turn their respective countries into IT powerhouses. This plan, too, has a provision for a powerful committee under the Prime Minister to implement the project. If the head of government takes a bold decision and acts in line with the master plane, it is possible that the country will achieve some major goals in e-governance.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Ritu Raj Subedi
Quelle/Source: Gorkhapatra, 26.05.2007
