E-Commerce and E-Governance

Lecture 9 and 10
E-Governance in Bangladesh
 WHAT IS E-GOVERNANCE

It is the use of a range of modern

information and communication
technologies such as internet, local area
networks, mobiles etc by Governments
to improve effectiveness, efficiency,
service delivery and to promote
democracy.
 WHAT IS E-GOVERNANCE
E-governance is defined as the application of
electronic means in—
 The interaction between government and citizens
and government and businesses, as well as in
internal government operations to simplify and
improve democratic, government and business
aspects of Governance.
 The term interaction stands for the delivery of
government products and services, exchange of
information, communication, transactions and
system integration.
 E-Democracy and E-Government
E-Democracy
It refers to the processes and structures that encompass
all forms of electronic interaction between the
Government (elected) and the citizen (electorate).
E-Government
It is a form of e-business in governance and refers to
the processes and structures needed to deliver
electronic services to the public (citizens and
businesses), collaborate with business partners and to
conduct electronic transactions within an organisational
entity.
 Objectives of E-Governance
The strategic objective of e-governance is to support
and simplify governance for all parties - government,
citizens and businesses.
E-governance uses electronic means to support and
stimulate good governance.
Therefore the objectives of e-governance are similar to
the objectives of good governance. Good governance
can be seen as an exercise of economic, political, and
administrative authority to better manage affairs of a
country at all levels, national and local.
 Objectives of E-Governance
The use of ICTs can connect all three parties
and support processes and activities. It
provides a common framework and direction in
the implementation of Government Policies for
the following:
Across the public sector organizations and
institutions (G2G)
Between Government and the Business
Community (G2B)
Between Government and Citizens (G2C)
 Overall Goal of E-Governance
 To make the Government more result
oriented, efficient and citizen centered

 E-Governance enables citizens and outside

world to access Government Services and
Information as efficiently as possible through
the use of internet and other channels like
mobile phones.
 Main Components of E-Governance

Government to Government Communication

(G2G)

Government to Business Communication

(G2B)

Government to Citizens Communication

(G2C)

03/03/12 E-Governance 7
Basic Requirements for E-Governance
Components
 High and affordable Information and Internet
infrastructure within Government Ministries,
private sector and citizens
 Extensive ICT Human Capacity
development in Government, Private
sectors and citizens
 Legal Framework that recognizes and
supports digital communication
 E-Governance Model

G2G
Central Government

Business

Citizen G2C G2G G2B NGOs

Civil Society
Local Government

G2G

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E-Governance in Bangladesh

 With the onset of information revolution, many developing countries have looked at
IT as a possible new tool to solve age-old problems of poverty, bad governance,
and sluggish economic growth.

 While the developed countries have been able to benefit greatly from the wide use
of IT, many developing countries are still grasping to make sense of how IT fits into
their problems.

 The trend is true in the case of e-Governance also. In Bangladesh, e-Governance

has been talked about a lot, some government offices have even taken innovative
steps towards certain e-Government projects.

 Since this is a new concept for government officials who are used to familiar
methods of work, the growth of e-Governance is met with resistance and fear,
among other infrastructural problems.

 But the good news is that the government is taking e-Governance very seriously.
The national ICT Task Force headed by the Honorable Prime Minister herself has
put great emphasis on identifying challenges in the implementation of nation-wide
e-Governance and on initiating pilot projects in various sectors of the government
through a project called the Support to ICT Task Force (SICT).
It is being implemented under the Ministry of Planning. Also, the Government of
Bangladesh is also getting substantial foreign cooperation in terms of financial
assistance and technical collaboration for realization of e-Governance at a national
scale

Distinction Between e-Governance and e-Government

e-Governance is composed of three major components:

G2C (Government-to-Citizen) involves interaction of individual citizens with the

government. Examples include payment of utility bills or downloading government
forms from the Internet. The e-Citizen Portal of Singapore is one of the most highly
acclaimed G2C sites. The portal has relevant information organized according to
topics and has specific entry points for teenagers, working adults, senior citizens
and foreigners. It also has scope for citizen feedback and questions.
G2B (Government-to-Business) involves interaction of business entities with
the government. Examples include corporate tax filing or government
procurement process through the Internet. One primary success story of online
government procurement is Malaysia’s e-Prohelan web-site which has about
3,500 government procurement centers and about 30,000 suppliers.

G2G (Government-to-Government) involves interaction among government

officials, whether within a government office or within government offices.
Examples include using e-mail for internal government communication or a
customized software for tracking progress of government projects. A popular
G2G service is e-Police System in Karnataka, India, which has an electronic
searchable database of various types of police records.

It is G2G which is generally referred to as being e-Government. Therefore, e-

Government may be perceived as being a sub-component of overall e-
Governance. Although it needs to be kept in mind that in some literature, the
terms ‘e-Government’ and ‘e-Governance’ are used interchangeably.
2.3 Defining e-Government

e-Government is about automation of existing every-day government activities. Some

examples include: (a) day-to-day communication such as notification of a meeting time;
(b) accessing documents such as meeting minutes, policy documents; (c) accessing
needed data such as export growth of a certain commodity; (d) tracking progress of
government projects; (e) disseminating policies and strategies such as laws passed at the
Parliament.

3. Selected e-Government Projects in Bangladesh

Some of the major e-government projects in Bangladesh are briefly outlined below. This
is by no means a comprehensive list.

Ministry of Finance: has customized software for budget planning, sensitivity analysis,
impact analysis, financial projections and various reports

National Board of Revenue: Much of the activities of NBR has been computerized. NBR is
computerizing the revenue budget procedure.

Ministry of Science and ICT: Creating web-sites containing information about various
ministries
Ministry of Communication: Provides online searchable database of contractors,
tenders. They have also created a Project Monitoring System for tracking
progress of projects.

Bangladesh Planning Commission: Creating software for interfacing between

development and revenue budget. The IT system at Bangladesh Plannin
Commission has the following features:
•File sharing facilities through LAN
•Video Conferencing
•Electronic Notice Board
•Digital Library containing policies of Bangladesh in searchable format, minutes
of meetings, other useful documents etc.
•ADP database facilities
•Software for tracking movement of files
Fig 2: Internal Web-site of Bangladesh Planning Commission
4. Challenges of e-Governance
It is important to treat e-Government and G2B/C separately since the problems are largely
distinct.

The government offices themselves should internally prepared first before offering its services
to the public through electronic means. We will deal with each following issue by summarizing
the current status and then indicating the challenges associated with the issue.

Challenges of G2G/e-Government:

Inadequate ICT Infrastructure within the government: Most ministries have a largely
inadequate number of working computers. Very few government offices have their computers
connected to the Internet. Even fewer have internal networks. However, it is also true that a
number of government offices have computers that remain almost completely unused due to
lack of integrated planning.

Inadequate access to ICT by government officials: It is generally the case that computers in
government offices generally find their way into the offices of the high-level officials.
Sometimes it is seen that they possess more than one computer coming from
different externally-funded projects. The desk level officers generally are not
considered for access to computers despite the fact that interest about ICTs and
ability to learn new technologies are higher among younger officers than older.
Computers have sadly become somewhat of a status symbol in government
offices.

Awareness of government officials about ICT: More than anything else, it is the
mindset of government officials that poses the biggest bottleneck to e-
Government. There are a number of reasons why they resist the use of computers
beyond usual typing of letters and documents. Some of the primary reasons are
mentioned: (1) they are resistant to any kind of change in their familiar working
environment; (2) they fear that computerization of different government activities
may make some people redundant; (3) they think that computers are meant for
low-level typist kind of work.

Non-acceptability of IT systems: It is often seen that even after an IT system is

implemented in a government office, it becomes hard for government officials to
convince them to use it. Besides the general lack of awareness about ICTs and the
fears discussed earlier, some other factors also play a part in their non-
acceptability of IT systems. They fear important data getting lost or they are
doubtful about the security features of computers.
Lack of incentive structure for government officials: In the private sector, it is
seen that people skilled in the use of IT are generally valued more than a
counterpart who is not as IT proficient. In the government, however, there is no such
system of discriminatory valuation of personnel. As a consequence, there is not
enough of an incentive for government officials to become IT savvy. The use of IT is
mostly self-motivated and a matter of individual free choice.

Lack of adequate training programs: Many e-Government or computerization

projects suffer gravely from lack of adequate training programs. Training is of vital
necessity in familiarizing users with computers and breaking their fears. Some
officials go through unplanned ‘IT Training’, often in another country, and then come
back not getting any scope for utilizing his/her newly gathered knowledge of IT and
forgetting it all in due time. The training programs are mostly not need-based and
arranged at arbitrary periods, not during the implementation phase of an e-
Government project.

Lack of reliable maintenance: Another significant problem is that generally there

is no in-house maintenance personnel. It is of vital necessity that computers gets
fixed as soon as they malfunction or users very easily lose confidence over IT
systems. Most offices have contracts with local hardware companies for
maintenance, but their services are often not immediate.
Lack of sustainability of IT Systems: Almost all e-Government projects are funded
through external sources, primarily foreign funds. This brings about a very
vulnerable situation with regards to the sustainability of these projects. As soon as
the external fund dries up, it is often seen that there is no fund left even to buy
printer paper. As a result of this, there is a lot of hardware sitting in government
offices unused as memories of a bygone project.

Frequent, unpredictable transfer of government officials: Another major

problem to popularizing e-Government in an office is that government officials get
frequently and unpredictably transferred. It is seen that IT systems are often
dependent on one or two IT champions. As soon as they are transferred, no one
remains to take their position.

Lack of ownership of IT systems: A direct result of the system of government

transfers is that there is great unwillingness to take ownership of IT-related
projects. If hardware and IT systems remain unused, there is no one to take
responsibility and encourage others. There is currently no government structure in
place to create this ownership of e-Government at the level of individual offices.
Lack of Bangla standardization: Currently, there is no standardization for
use of Bangla in the electronic format. Different people use different fonts,
often resulting in documents not opening in someone else’s computer.
Another major issue is that none of these fonts maintain the international
standard – UNICODE - as a result of which Bangla content cannot be put up
on the Internet using these fonts. Bangla documents now have to be
uploaded on the Web as files only.

 Challenges of G2B and G2C

ICT infrastructure across the nation:

There is a good progress of digitalization of network for narrowband

service. Construction of DDN (Digital Data Network) is smoothly on-going
throughout the country, including digitalization by using optical fiber cables
for backbone network and junction network in the city areas.
This development will cater to the demands for the time being. Bangladesh has also
joined the submarine cable network consortium which will link Bangladesh with
Southeast Asia, Middle East and Western Europe (SEA-ME-WE). The SEA-ME-WE 4 is
scheduled to be operational by the first quarter of 2004.

Access to ICT by citizens: Bangladesh has a very low level of Internet and PC
penetration. There are no public places that allow access to the Internet at low cost.
In such a scenario, it is a matter of great concern how people would get G2C services
even if they were offered publicly.

Access to ICTs by businesses: It is mostly the larger businesses in Bangladesh that

have computers. Very few among these have connectivity to the Internet. Under such
circumstances, many businesses may not be able to participate in online tenders or
application procedures.
Public Awareness about ICTs: Although there is much hope about IT among the
younger generation, there is not a high level of awareness among the general public
about how ICTs may be useful to their lives. Also, there is cultural inhibition about the
use of PCs in this country. From a cultural context, people are generally not familiar
with the concept of using computers. ICTs are still generally perceived to be a thing for
the rich and the elite. As a result, there is no demand or pressure from the public for
service delivery through the use of ICTs.

General Challenges of e-Governance

Lack of necessary regulatory/legal framework: The regulatory/legal framework in

Bangladesh has not yet been modernized to accommodate the growing needs of the
electronic world. Still, in government offices, an e-mail has no official value and cannot
be legally considered an acceptable mode of communication. There are no laws to
protect against cyber-crime, neither are there any laws for electronic authentication.

Inadequate human resource capacity: Most of the well-trained IT graduates of the

country leave since there is little scope for them in Bangladesh in terms of professional
development.
Preparedness of local software companies: Most local software companies still have not
developed the level of expertise or professionalism needed to handle large-scale
integrated e-Government projects. Although the scenario is rapidly changing in terms of
needed technical expertise, the companies are still lagging behind in terms of
professionalism and experienced management.

Supply of electricity across the nation: Since there are yet no low-cost methods of running
computers without electricity, the issue of electricity has to be solved before a widespread
dissemination of ICTs is possible.

High-cost, low-reliability of Internet access: Internet access cost in Bangladesh is very

high and highly unreliable. There are virtually no dial-up options outside major cities since
long distance calls are exorbitantly expensive. Internet access and availability of PCs are
disproportionately concentrated in Dhaka. Most ISPs are dependent on VSAT transmission
and the bandwidths being used varies from 64Kbps to 4Mbps. 60 percent ISPs are between
128Kbps and 1Mbps in this concern. This is far below what is required even by current
demand. Current situation of dialup Internet connection is rather poor. Connection over
21Kbps to 31Kbps is the speed in home use.
Possible Steps Towards Solution
Recommendations for G2G

 Build ICT Infrastructure throughout the government:

 Investment should be made on building ICT infrastructure throughout the

government, keeping in mind that the returns from such investment will be long-term.

Stand-alone computers (i.e. those that are not connected in a network) are not very
useful for e-Government.

There should be plans for computers to be connected internally in offices through

LAN, then inter-connected with other relevant offices through WAN. Eventually the
network needs to extend to local-government level.

It is important to recognize that the savings in time and money from e-Government
will be realized gradually. No overnight returns should be expected.

Stress on awareness before training:

One of the primary reasons why government officials resist the use of IT lies in the
way the training programs are structured.
The typical training programs introduce government officials to the world of
IT through programs such as Microsoft Word, thus throwing them into a
confusion about what computers are really about and how it will benefit them.

Since most officials do not need to type documents themselves, they cannot
relate to the computers as far as their daily office work is concerned.

These IT training programs should be re-oriented so that in the first classes

they are introduced to the concepts of how computers may make their work
more efficient.

The training programs should stress on awareness about the potential of IT

in government rather than concentrate too much on teaching officials how to
type.

And more importantly, there is not much typing involved in most of the
customized e-Government software. The training programs should concentrate
on creating a mental framework towards IT, not on physical skills in using the
keyboard.
Provide networked computers to mid-to-lower level officers as well as
high-level officers:

The practice of providing computers to only high-level officials needs to be

reconsidered.

It is the younger officials who are more enthusiastic about ICTs and, more
likely to find more creative use of computers and even train themselves in basic
handling of computers.

Mid-to-lower level officers should be given access to computers. This would

be a good way of investing into the future, of preparing the government officers
who will take the lead in the future.

Create incentive structure for use of IT:

There should be some kind of incentive structure for the promoters of IT in the
government.

Recognition or award from the Prime Minister or the President may be a good
way of starting a practice of appreciating the work of IT champions in the
government.
Give importance to regular training:

There should be planned training programs to orient officers for using

computers and more importantly, to develop awareness about the potential of
IT.

Without adequate and timely training and awareness programs, e-

Government projects are likely to fail no matter how much the investment.

Make plans for reliable maintenance:

There should be a process to have 24 hr., and immediate maintenance,

without which critical e-Government projects should not be undertaken.

It is also vital to maintain confidence of users. The maintenance work should
be ideally outsourced since the current government structure does not allow
internal IT maintenance team.

 Updating of database:

There should also be a process for regular updating of data since almost all
e-Government projects involve the storage and retrieval of huge amounts of
data. An outdated database is worse or potentially more dangerous than no
database at all.
 Build sustainable models for e-Government:

To build sustainable models for e-Government, three processes have to be

outsourced: those involving personnel training, hardware and software
maintenance and updating of databases.

 Also, steps have to be taken so e-Government projects that get started

through external funds are internalized within the budget of the government so
that these projects do not meet sad deaths after external funding stops.

 Transfer issue:

Transfer of government officials is an inherent part of the government process.

While taking decisions about such transfer, the level of IT training of the
candidate for transfer should be taken into account.

 Appoint CIO:

To create ownership and accountability structure for e-Government projects, an

interested mid-to-high level government official in a particular office should be
appointed as CIO (Chief Information Officer) of that office.
It will be the responsibility of the CIO to make plans for integration of ICT into
the activities of that office and promote e-Government.

In many Asian countries such as Thailand, Japan and Malaysia, the concept
of CIO in government has been internalized and their responsibilities made
mandatory.

They go through a different kind of more rigorous IT training. In Japan, Inter-

Ministerial CIO Council was formed, which meets regularly to discuss issues of
e-Government implementation.

In Thailand also, CIOs are required to meet regularly and a regular CIO
award is given by the government gets much highlight in the media.

Standardization for use of Bangla:

To ease the use of Bangla in electronic formats, there should be some kind of
standardization of fonts that maintain international UNICODE standards.

Since communication and official documents in the government are still in

Bangla, this standardization is a very urgent need without which integration of
ICTs with government activities will face major hurdles.
Consider issues of interoperability and interconnectivity: Another
important issue for consideration is maintaining open standards in building IT
systems so that they can be integrated with IT systems in other government
offices. Use of open source technologies can be an important step in this respect.
5.2 Recommendations for G2B and G2C
Build ICT infrastructure across the nation:

Investment should be made to build ICT infrastructure throughout the nation. The
international submarine cable project should be expedited as well as the Internet
Exchange (IX) establishment project.

The following are the existing infrastructures that can be used for broadband
transmission—of optical fiber cable transmission:

OPGW (OPtical fiber Grounding Wire) of high tension power line:

PDB has advanced installation of OPGW considering its usefulness as
resource. Sooner or later, PDB with PGCB intends to realize an entire 48-core
optical fiber network throughout the country. This OPGW network is very valuable as
a national ICT resource.
Highway:
According to Highway & Road Department, there has not exist any
plan under which duct installation is considered for optical fiber cable from
planning stage. The ducts were always constructed upon the request of
BTTB, separately from road construction.

Gas Pipelines:
According to GTCL, there are no optical fiber cables in its Right of
Way (RoW). GTCL is aware of how best to use the RoW today. The
company is desirous to install some optical fiber cables along their pipe lines
when newly planned.

Create online access points at public places:

Online access points should be made from public places such as post
offices so that anyone can get access to the Internet at low, subsidized cost.
This is a model that is popular in almost all countries.

Without such facilities, G2C and G2B services may not be able to reach
target population easily.

Extend connectivity outside cities: Steps have to be taken to allow easy

Internet access from outside cities. Incentives will have to be given to ISPs to
locate outside cities.
Organize public awareness programs on IT:

Public awareness programs should be arranged highlighting the relevance of IT

in daily life. It should be emphasized that IT and computerization is not only
about typing documents in the computer. The cultural inhibition to using
computers must be overcome.
General Recommendations for e-Governance:

Push for a comprehensive regulatory framework for e-Governance:

There is an urgent need for a comprehensive regulatory/legal framework for realization of

e-Governance.

Some of the issues to be included in the framework to protect intellectual property, laws
for acceptance of documents in electronic format (such as downloaded documents), laws
against cyber-terrorism to protect against unauthorized hacking, laws to enable electronic
authentication.

 Also needed is an Electronic Certification Authority designated by the government which

should have the authority to provide electronic certification to organization and individuals.

Create and retain adequate IT human resource:

There needs to be a well-planned program to create a greater number of IT human

resource in the country.

The number of seats in the computer science and engineering departments of universities
needs to be increased.
Steps need to be taken to monitor the quality of training institutes. Government
certification programs to test individuals need to be arranged for maintaining quality of
IT-related diplomas.

Efforts should also be taken to retain the massive number of IT-trained personnel
Bangladesh is losing each year.

Invest in public IT literacy:

IT literacy programs should start early in schools because it is at that tender age that
students are most open to new ideas and technologies.

The government should also arrange, encourage and subsidize IT vocational training to
create an IT-literate society.

Encourage local software companies to prepare themselves:

The local software companies should take steps to become more prepared for
handling government IT projects, especially in areas of project management.

The software companies may also need to cooperate among themselves to jointly
handle large-scale e-Government projects.
Individual software companies in Bangladesh mostly do not have the human
resource capacity to handle government projects.

The government should take steps to give public projects to software companies so
that they gain needed experience for larger projects.

Invest in reliable supply of electricity:

Steps need to be taken to explore alternative sources of power or alternative means

of power generation.

Different developing countries are experimenting with solar power, bicycle-

generated power etc. Bangladesh should also take similar steps.

Deregulation of ISP and telephony service providers:

The ISP and telephone service provision must be deregulated to allow for greater
competition and lower price.