The draft of ‘National IT Roadmap’ made public on Wednesday stated that the eGMP will be implemented by 2019 with focus on making available government services through mobile phones. To this effect, MoSTE officials during an interaction on the draft roadmap said that the master plan will be reviewed and implemented accordingly.
As per the original plan of the government, the eGMP was supposed to come into implementation by 2011 to materialise the dream of e-government into reality. The basics of the master plan were to make public service delivery effective through internet and other digital mediums. However, even as the master plan was prepared, the government had failed to implement it due to constraints including lack of required IT infrastructure, human resources and policy and legal aspects.
MoSTE has set a target to review the master plan within one year and also transform all government services into e-services preparing a strategic plan in coordination with all the ministries within five years. “With mobiles being accessible to everyone, it has been necessary to focus on m-services now,” said Krishna Chandra Paudel, secretary of MoSTE. He added the roadmap was almost in its final stage and also requested all ministries to take ownership.
The roadmap contains over 80 different activities to be carried out by different ministries and agencies under them. By 2019, the roadmap has set a target to make most government services such as application for passport, citizenship and paying utility bills of water and electricity available online integrating all e-services in the national portal of the government.
The draft is basically based on the targets of the IT Policy 2065 and eGMP, according to Birendra Kumar Mishra, director general of the IT Department. The government has envisaged of making IT sector one of the top 10 areas contributing in the GDP, promoting IT based industries, making IT services accessible to rural areas and expanding infrastructure nationwide.
Binod Dhakal, president of Computer Association of Nepal said that the roadmap was a good initiative taken by the government and underlined the need of proper coordination among government agencies for proper implementation. He also said that the roadmap should talk about giving tax holiday to local software and BPO companies for at least five years to promote them.
The draft roadmap has proposed to adopt immediate (one-year), medium (three-year) and long term (five-year) action plans. “Since IT is changing so rapidly we have provided maximum five years time depending on projects for implementation,” said Mishra. Based on Wednesday’s discussion and input from other concerned ministries, MoSTE will make the needful changes in the draft roadmap and present it to the Cabinet for approval.
Making each related ministry and its department responsible in carrying out the project, the roadmap has targeted to implement programmes to enhance the use of ICT in the field of health, education, agriculture and tourism.
Government officials representing other ministries suggested to think of alternative power solution when fixing target to make services available online from all government offices across country.
What’s in the draft roadmap?
- Developing a city as Smart City
- Provide SEZ status to Sanga of Bhaktapur, Banepa, Panauti and Dhulikhel for IT industry
- Provision of loan to domestic software companies at low interest rate
- Foreign IT professionals to be allowed to work in Nepal
- IT umbrella Act within a year
- Make provision of e-payment gateway
- Establishment of Computer Emergency Rescue Team
- Establishment of e-village centres
- Implementation of e-heath and telemedicine
- Promote e-learning, international digital learning and e-library
- Computerised Single Window system for trade facilitation
- Establish Nepal as a prime destination for BPO and software development
- Shared workspace and business incubation centres for IT firms
Quelle/Source: The Himalayan Times, 28.05.2014
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