Online office during coronavirus
Online office: Pvt employees more active than govt officials
Although employees at different private institutions are continuing to work from home during the ongoing government-declared general holidays, most government employees are enjoying the holidays without attending offices online.
Experts say implementation of virtual offices for government officials is also possible.
Nazrul Islam Khan, former national project director of the Access to Information Programme of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), said all government officials can work online from home if the authorities want that to happen.
“Now it’s very much possible to keep offices, including ministries, operational thanks to internet facilities. Important meetings can be arranged using Zoom and Google. Besides, letters and other files can be transferred easily through e-filing system. But these are not happening now,” he said.
Earlier, all ministries were instructed by the PMO to use e-filing system to turn Bangladesh into a digital country. But the instruction was not fully implemented. Now a number of ministries are using the technology on trial basis.
As the number of coronavirus cases in the country is growing and the global situation worsening, the government on March 23 declared general holidays from March 26 and later extended that to April 25.