“Today, this is another big step towards that direction (providing citizen services digitally). We’ll also be adding more and more citizen services,” Joy said while addressing a function marking the unveiling of ‘E-government Master Plan’ and launch of ‘Digital Municipality Service System for Digital Bangladesh’ in the city.
He also inaugurated three digital one-stop services – Eksheba, Ekpay and Ekshop – to enable the people to get different government services, utility bills and fees payment facilities and e-commerce.
Local Government, Rural Development & Co-operatives Minister MdTazul Islam MP, State Minister for ICT Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak , South Korean Ambassador to Bangladesh Hu Kang-Il, Senior Secretary, ICT Division NM ZeaulAlam and Country Director, KOICA Bangladesh Office Joe Hyun-Gue, among others, were present at the function.
Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in collaboration with Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) and ICT Division unveiled its ‘E-government Master Plan and launched ‘Digital Municipality Service System’ for Digital Bangladesh.
These are part of KOICA-assisted project ‘Establishment of the e-government Master Plan for Digital Bangladesh’.
Joy said KOICA has been a very strong and fundamental partner in much of Bangladesh’s digitization process. “They have the expertise, technology and they have shared that with us and enable us to see rapid progress and digitization.”
He said they started their journey towards Digital Bangladesh more than 10 years ago and at that time most of the people did not have clear idea about Digital Bangladesh.
Today, Joy said, no one questions about Digital Bangladesh and Digital Bangladesh is a reality today.
A successful ICT application in e-Governance gives a one-stop solution and helps to achieve Bangladesh’s vision of “Digital Bangladesh” by 2021, KOICA said.
KOICA initiated to launch a project on “Establishment of the e-Government Master Plan for Digital Bangladesh” in collaboration with Bangladesh Computer Council and ICT Division from 2014 with the grant of USD 3.2 million.
The main objectives include establishment of e-Government master plan and action plan, implementation of the pilot project for e-Government and capacity building of Bangladesh government officials.
As part of the Republic of Korea’s support for Digital Bangladesh, e-Government Master Plan has been established to help Bangladesh with implementation of transparent, efficient and accountable public administration.
It further aims to digitize public services for better delivery and greater social inclusion hoping to reach even the vulnerable sections of the society.
KOICA hoped that this document will serve as a foundation for the Government’s “Digital Bangladesh by 2021” program, which envisions the mainstreaming of information technology as a pro-poor tool to reduce poverty, establish good governance and ensure social equity.
During the development of the strategic document, 47 initiatives were discovered for short, mid and long-term implementation to achieve Digital Bangladesh.
Among these initiatives, the first ranked initiative was ‘Digital Municipality Service System Development’.
KOICA took this as a pilot project and implanted in Mymensingh City Corporation and nine municipalities, namely, Faridpur, Gopalganj, Jhenaidah, Natore, Ramgoti, Singra, Tarabo, Tungipara, and Pirganj.