State Minister for Public Administration Ismat Ara Sadique said there is no alternative to e-governance to ensure opportunity for getting information and using it by the citizens.
“E-governance is such a process which ensures citizens’ right to express their opinion and ensure transparency and efficiency in the government organizations,” she said.
The state minister came up with the observations on Tuesday while addressing the inaugural ceremony and seminar on “National Backbone Network of Bangladesh Government” at a city hotel.
State Minister for Post, Telecommunications & Information Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak, Information and Communication Technology Division Secretary Shyam Sunder Sikder, Korean Ambassador Lee Yun-young, and Executive Director of Bangladesh Computer Council SM Ashraful Islam addressed the function, among others. Top officials and experts of this sector both from government and private agencies including Ajit Kumar Sarkar, communication specialist, Leveraging ICT for Growth, Employment and Governance Project of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) were present on the occasion. “The day is very joyous for us as we are inaugurating the project. When Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had given us the vision of Digital Bangladesh, many had criticized it and raised questions on whether we will be able to achieve it with the existing officials.
“Many government officials have not had an email account. Only 3 million people were using internet. The price of one mbps internet bandwidth was Taka 72 thousand. But we have come a long way. As many as 4.5 crore people are now using internet,” Palak said.
“With the completion of this project, we have proved that Bangladesh too can achieve the goal of completing a project before the end of stipulated time. Internet connectivity between districts and upazilas has been established under the project which can cut down the corruption and waste of time significantly,” he added.
Aimed at bringing all the government offices from the capital to upazilas under a common backbone network under the project named BanglaGovNet, the system will allow the officials to transfer data more swiftly, hold video conference and use IP Phone.
Financed jointly by Bangladesh government and the Government of the Republic of Korea, the project has been established by Korean IT services provider SK C&C Co Ltd.
