An Assessment of Pourashava Digital Center:

A Case Study of 9 Municipalities

Khaleda Rockshana Mahbub

Md. Mamunur Rashid
Objectives:

A. To find out the present status of services provided by Pourasabha

Digital Centers
B. To assess the level of effectiveness of Pourasabha Digital Centers in
Bangladesh through satisfaction of its users.
C. To identify the existing challenges and gaps of Pourasabha Digitals
center in providing the satisfactory services to the users
D. Find out a way forward for overcoming the challenges.
Area and Methodology
9 Municipalities under 3 districts (Barishal,
153 Respondents
FINDINGS
 According to all of 11 interviewed Entrepreneurs of PDC, the major services given by them
are birth registration and death registration. People frequently come here for these two
types of services.
 According to the 58 percent interviewed entrepreneurs, the PDC do not have sufficient
equipment and machine to run a well functional digital center.
 According to the 8 out of 11 interviewed entrepreneurs' electricity condition is very good at
PDC.
 About 45 Percent (%) entrepreneurs said they are suffering with the internet speed. Speed is
not good enough to run the software. While about 36 percent said that the speed is good
enough and they not particularly facing any problem.
 73 percent PDCs have fees chart for the services. But not all these 73 percent any has
mechanism for displaying the chart. About 18 percent has no fixed fees chart. They take the
service charge according to the volume of services.
 Among the total 96 interviewed service receivers, 80 percent (%) said that they have
received the services of birth and death registration. Apart from this, people received
services from PDCs like issuing character certificate or citizen certificate [15
percent]. Very few, about 10 percent said that they received services like checking the
public exam results and others said scan and photocopy [16 percent].
 About 80 percent service receivers said that they need not to visit the PDCs
frequently. Most of them visited 1 to 5 times within last six months for taking
services.
 Most of all service receivers agreed and that entrepreneurs are skilled enough for
providing the services as per their requirement.
 Total 30 out of 96 interviewed service receivers agreed that services in PDC are
hassle free and less charge consuming.
 Total 55 out of 96 interviewed service receivers said that they do not know whether
the PDC has any fees chart or not.
 According to the service receivers the major problems Of PDCs are
a. Technical problems
b. Lack of equipment and modern machine
c. Remain open in office time only.
d. Prioritizing Municipalities’ people
e. Having no fixed and visible fees chart

 According to the entrepreneurs the major problems of PDCs are

a. Job Insecurity
b. Lack of software and hardware related skill
c. Location of PDC
d. IT related technical problem
e. Low income through service providing
f. Lack of Electronic Resources
Recommendations
 Government should take necessary steps for the development of the PDC. Monitoring
Mechanism should be developed for checking and monitoring its equipment and machines
regularly. The not-functional machines should be replaced timely and need assessment for the
machine and equipment should be done yearly.
 Human Resource Development should be done. The government should pay more attention to
human resources development program to make PDCs effective. Training and follow-up
trainings should be done regularly by the relevant institutions such as NILG, ICT Division of
Bangladesh Government. Initiatives should be taken to incorporate hardware training along with
the software trainings.
 Budget constraint are a major problem for maintaining PDCs. Every year government should
make a proper financial allocation for the smooth functioning of these one-stop information and
service centers. This allocation specially needed for maintaining the PDC i.e., servicing the
equipment, buying necessary materials, solving technical problems etc.
 To get the full advantages from PDCs, speedy internet connection is a must. But the present
internet speed in the PDC is not that much speedy and smooth. Local government authority
should take initiatives for this. Separate Wi-Fi with good speed can be provided for the PDC.
 If the PDC need to run under PPP modality, then handsome incentives for the entrepreneurs should
be arranged for encouraging their dedication for their duties and responsibilities. This will also help
to reduce the frequent change of entrepreneurs because of less income.
 Most of the visited PDCs have assigned staffs for PDC. They get salary from municipality, but they
are muster roll staffs. If the PDC have to run by the assigned staffs, then their job needs to be
permanent. Their job insecurity hampers their concentration to job.
 PDC members as well as municipality can arrange publicity programs for making people aware
about their services. It was observed that people only come to PDC for certificate types services.
Most of them do not know about other online services that PDC can serve. Advertisement and
publicity program can help people to know.
 In visited 9 municipalities there were only one female entrepreneur working at the PDC. Creating
job position for female at the PDC was done for encouraging women in ICT related works as well
contributing to achieving gender equality and economic empowerment of women which is also a
target of SDG 5. Initiatives should be taken for increasing and encouraging women for working at
the PDC. Some gender related facilities such as time flexibility, space for day care, special skill
development training etc. can be given for the women who will come to work at the PDCs.