The government has launched a national portal for around 25,000 of its websites, claiming it the largest web portal in the world.
The idea behind “bangladesh.gov.bd” is to reduce confusion and protect the sites from being hacked.
The Prime Minister’s Information and Communication Technology Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy formally inaugurated the portal in a programme at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) yesterday.
“We have information that it is the largest web portal [in the world] and there is no confusion over it,” Sajeeb Wazed Joy said.
He also said: “The country is now half way to becoming Digital Bangladesh and we can travel the rest of the way before 2021… Not only a middle-income country, we want to be a modern and developed country and it will be possible in our lifetime.”
Joy, also son of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said: “We are not only building a ‘digital Bangladesh,’ we are actually on the way towards staging a digital revolution and only the Awami League can do this.”
The portal will give a common design and layout to all the government websites that are currently hosted and maintained individually by the respective departments.
The PMO’s Access to Information (A2I) program has developed the site that will centrally maintain the websites of the respective ministries, divisions and wings of government offices.
A total of 50,000 officials have already been trained up for maintaining the portal.
According to A2I, it is an exemplary programme where the websites of 4,550 union offices, 14,640 upazila offices, 4,032 district offices, 455 divisional offices, 64 district council offices, 488 upazila parishad offices, 55 ministries and divisions, 345 departments and 414 city or municipal corporations are being covered.
The sites contains 20 lakh contents, more than 40,000 pictures, information on all the educational institutions, government offices and their contact persons, government gadgets, freedom fighters’ lists and descriptions of historical and tourist attractions.
The A2I also hopes to uphold citizens’ right to information through this portal.
In August 2011, A2I began the journey of readying the national portal from Comilla.
Sajeeb Wazed Joy held a video conference with the local authority in Comilla yesterday.
At yesterday’s programme, State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak said: “Bangladesh has created an information revolution over the last couple of years and more than 25,000 websites under a single platform is a proof of that.”
Speakers said the government had been observing the Public Service Week and there could not be a better example of how people could be served than “providing people with information before they ask for it.”