Bangladesh has sought a US$167m loan from China to implement the government’s ICT Vision 2021 under its project titled “Development of ICT Infra-Network for Bangladesh Government Phase-III (Info-Sarkar Phase-3).”
The loan is expected to be taken from the Exim Bank of China under a government to government (G2G) arrangement, official sources said.
The proposed loan would be used to procure all the necessary products, infrastructural works and services from the Chinese state-owned firm M/s China Railway International Group Company Limited (CRIG) through a direct purchase method, according to a summary of the report of the cabinet committee on economic affairs.
The Chinese government has already nominated the state-owned firm M/s China Railway International Group Company Limited (CRIG) to implement the project.
The incumbent AL-led government announced "Vision 2021" in its election manifesto as a political commitment as part of its bid to build "Digital Bangladesh."
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division has undertaken a project titled "Info-Sarkar Phase-3" with an aim to give all the Union Information Service Centres (UISC) an institutional shape.
Treating it a priority project for making Digital Bangladesh, the Information & Communication Technology (ICT) Division under the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication has sought the money on an urgent basis.
An ICT division official said, “The government is now planning to expand the ICT facilities up to the union parishads, the lowest tier of the local government.”
ICT division, which wants to launch this massive project as early as possible, is waiting for financial support to implement the project.
Under the project (Info-SarkarPhase-3), the government plans to provide optical fibre connections for up to 1,200 union parishads across the country.
A total of 171 video conference systems, 554 Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), pilot-based Cloud platform, increasing the capacity of the existing network management system, set up of network equipment and establishing Help desk will be needed to expedite the ICT infra-Network on an urgent basis.
“Info-Sarkar Phase-3 is a major project for the information highway. As Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina always likes a bottom0up policy, it must reflect the PM’s desire while implementing this project,” Zunaid Ahmed Palak, state minister for ICT, told the Dhaka Tribune.
He continued: “We want to use technology in each and every sector as it is time for information and technology. Digital Bangladesh means that people will not run after services, rather services will hunt them.”
Uttam Kumar Paul, secretary general of BASIS (Bangladesh Association Software & Information Services) said: “Info-Sarkar Phase-3 will integrate us with the information gateway.”
“It will create great opportunities in rural areas to make documentation and outsourcing centres with an aim to create job opportunities at the grassroots level,” he added.
