Bangladesh's Digital Journey: Online service

delivery through ICT

By - Professor Syed Ahsanul Alam Parvez

Prelude:

Globalization and rapid progress in Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

are bringing about fundamental changes in all aspects of our society. Remarkable
changes have taken place in service sectors like

a) banking, b) hotels, c) hospitals, d) airlines, e) trains, f) buses, g) stock exchanges, h)

news paper, i) tourism sector j) online job site k) e-education, l) e-library and other
service sectors.

Changes in Government:

Similar changes are taking place in governments. Very recently our government
introduced the district web portal so that citizens can remain more informed. Very slowly
more and more government agencies are publishing their websites with limited
information. Automations of our custom house is a good example of uses of ICT in e-
service delivery through ICT.

Our response to these worldwide changes is to transform Bangladesh to a digital

Bangladesh , which means delivering services to citizens more effectively online and by
ICT. It means not asking the citizen for more information than necessary, or not asking
the citizen to go to more than one agency for a specific service. It means service delivery
organizations linking their back-ends to citizen rather than expecting the citizen to do so.

Definitely Digital governance will call for increased IT uses and enhance better
connectivity in public and private sector.
Using ICT to Better Serve Citizens:

E-Government is not simply adding an "e" to government. It requires that we

fundamentally re-think all aspects of government services to see how we can take
advantage of technology to deliver services online to citizens. It also means that we
leverage on ICT to change the nature and quality of governance to ensure that citizens
can enjoy the online services sitting at home and office. It is about achieving, what we
like to call, making online as much e-services possible and simplify service delivery
procedure.

The Digital Journey:

Our honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has declared her political commitment to
transform Bangladesh into a Digital Bangladesh. Her political commitment has a clear
direction of transforming Bangladesh government to an e-government. The first phase of
Digitalizing Bangladesh is directed at improving public administration through the
effective use of IT by automation of works functions and reducing paperwork.

I refer here that we should gradually move towards a paperless office in the government
sector. But we have to remember that after bathing the baby, we cannot throw the baby
with the bathing water. We have to maintain hard copy of documents as back up till that
time when data storage and data retrieval system in our country becomes dependable and
full proof. In the second phase the emphasis subsequently should be shifted to inter-
agency communication and co-ordination so as to provide integrated services to the
public or citizens. I am referring here to transform our citizens to e-citizens, enjoying
more and more services online both from the public and the private sector in the near
future. In one of my report to the government, I have emphasized to create a number of
Data Hubs to reduce redundancy in data capturing and promote data sharing within the
Government. Very recently in Bangladesh , we saw the beginning of an adaptive civil
service-wide network more known as the district portal.

Delivering e-services Online:

In the area of e-service delivery, we may identify four (4) levels of e-service based on
the depth of interaction between the citizens and Government to assist our public sector
agencies in developing their e-services capability. The 4 levels can be denoted as

a) "Publish"- At the lowest level of "Publish", the interaction is one-way with the user
receiving information online. b) "Interact", c) "Transact" and d) "Integrate"- At the
"Integrate" level, the organizational complexity is hidden from the customer.

To implement Digital Bangladesh, service delivery organizations must strive to deliver

online every service that can be delivered electronically. E-service delivery organizations
should also aim to deliver every e-service at the Transact level online, unless impossible,
in which case it shall be offered at the Interact level. The transaction can be carried out by
ATM cards, debit cards, credit cards or any other type of bank cards available in our
country.

To-date, less than 1% of all feasible public services are online only. To mention a few
are:

a) Online banking, b) Online hotel reservations, c) online hospital reservations, d) online

train ticketing,

e) online air ticketing, f)) online bus ticketing, g) online library, etc.

But the number of these services is less than 20 to the best of my knowledge. It is
interesting to know that Singapore already made more than 1650 online services available
for their citizens out of about 2000 services identified by their government to be delivered
online to the citizens of Singapore . I expect in Bangladesh , we will be able to put more
and more services year by year for our citizens.

Hundreds of services required by the citizens may be made available online that are
organized around customers' needs. For this we need agencies to work to integrate
information processes so as to provide a continuous online experience.

Pivotal to the quick and efficient development and deployment of e-services is

developing a highly scalable and secure infrastructure layer, a rapid application
development environment and a set of basic services such as payment, authentication and
data exchange with legacy systems.

Delivering business services online:

In the business arena, services essential to the starting and the running of a business
maybe also delivered online. This will helps promote greater productivity, efficiency, and
convenience with simplified procedures and faster turnaround times. Issuance of

a) Trade license (TL),

b) TIN certificate,

c) Export license,

d) Import license,

e) Registrations of private company,

f) Membership certificate from Chambers of Commerce, and many others are examples
of services that maybe given online. The application approval process involving different
agencies maybe reduced to one third to that of the present.

Building a Digital Society:

Our Prime Ministers dream of a Digital Bangladesh is aimed to help citizens gain basic
access to basic IT technologies. As such the government has to keep sharp eye to see if
citizens are on the wrong side of the digital divide. Bangladesh government is committed
to ensure that technology is made accessible and affordable to all, regardless of wealth,
education, language, social background or ability.

To build this "Digital Bangladesh", a term coined by our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
indicating towards a digital society, the government will have put in place various
initiatives to ensure that there is sufficient public access and helping those who are away
from the cities and with less financial means to have access to information highway.

The National ICT Policy 2009 is one such initiative to increase the ICT literacy of the
nation as a whole. We have to run different programme to help the bureaucrats,
academics, professionals, students, workers, home makers to learn the basic as how to get
e-services or online services from the service providers. Initially they may have to be
dependent on those who have IT literacy. Gradually, our IT literacy is increasing and use
of ATMs, other online banking services, use of e-ticketing of air lines, buying train
tickets online are the proofs of the slow diffusion of technology in our society. Very soon
we will be able to buy bus tickets also online sitting at our home or office. Community
service shall be increased by students and other IT literate segments to gradually literate
the less privileged sections of the society.

From basic computer literacy to a IT trained workforce and gradually increasing the
number of e-citizens is a process which might take time. But our progress has to be
expedited to achieve our target to transform Bangladesh to a digital Bangladesh .

Till today we could not develop a robust nationwide broadband infrastructure. To ensure
that all our citizens including the under privileged section to enjoy the benefits of online
service delivery, we have to establish extensive IT network throughout the nation.

Many eCitizen Help Centres have to be developed nationwide and each eCitizen Help
Centre should be equipped with computers offering free Internet access to e-services.
Interested volunteers should be motivated to become eCitizen Helpers to guide citizens,
such as the elderly and IT-illiterate, who may need assistance to access to online services.

Connecting Citizens:

In building Digital Bangladesh, we inevitably will have to shape the expectations of our
citizens.
Moving forward, there are two areas that has to be focused on to delight our citizens and
to connect citizens.

Firstly, in the area of service delivery, service delivery organizations will have to deliver
accessible quality online services. Government has to ensure that technology is affordable
and everyone who wants to be online is able to do so.

Secondly, I believe that ICT can be leveraged on as a powerful tool to engage the citizens
as stakeholders to bring citizens closer together. As with online services, the emergence
of new technologies significantly widens the scope for consulting with citizens and to
facilitate citizen participation. I suggest to explore forming new channels using ICT to
build the infrastructure essential to nurture national bonding and facilitate the building of
a stronger sense of belonging to the country. This will appeal to a populace that is
becoming more comfortable in making use of electronic channels for work and play.

Moving forward, we shall focus on establishing basic levels online delivery of services
to citizens and in doing so we need greater consultation and participation of citizen.

Conclusion:

ICT has been a key enabler to offer online services to our citizens and businesses.

Our government has to be committed to continue to leverage on ICT through constantly

reviewing the processes, improving the quality and accessibility of our online services
and to connect citizens to bring them closer together. Besides the availability of services
online, it is equally important to consider their acceptance and usage by the public. The
benefits of online service can only be reaped if the public regard online service as the
norm in transacting with public and private sector enterprise.

____________________________

Author

Prof. Syed Ahsanul Alam is an internationally reputed policy strategist on e-

Governance & Chairman, Department of Marketing, University of Chittagong and
Chairman Center for Good Governance. Former Vice-Rector, Premier University and
Vice-Dean, University of Science and Technology, Director, Sadharon Bima
Corporation.

He lectured widely at various Universities at home and abroad and has numerous
International publication (See Internet) in his credit.

The Author may be reached at Fax :880-31-2550872,

E-mail:professorparvez@gmail.com
Web: www.goodgovernancebd.org