A taskforce established for formulating strategies, policies and decisions for “digital Bangladesh”, as per the ruling party’s 2008 election promise, met only once during the tenure of the outgoing Awami League-led alliance government.
The digital taskforce, headed by the prime minister, incorporates 23 members from relevant government ministries and non-government organisations, as well as ICT experts.
While declaring her party’s manifesto for the upcoming 10th parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina did not mention a single word about the taskforce.
Some taskforce members quipped that the PM perhaps “totally forgot about it”.
The AL president had earlier criticised the previous BNP-Jamaat government for rendering inoperative an ICT taskforce formed during her party’s 1996-2000 tenure.
“The taskforce on ICT that was established during the Awami League rule, but rendered ineffective by the BNP-Jamaat alliance, will be reactivated,” the AL chief claimed in her party’s 2008 manifesto.
After resuming power in January 2009, the new AL government changed the name of the ICT taskforce to“digital taskforce”, and made it the focal point of digital development in the country.
But the renamed taskforce met only once, in August 2010, in the past five years.
In that meeting, the taskforce had decided to meet at least once every three months, but no steps were taken to sit again over the next three years.
“We missed a huge opportunity to active the digital taskforce,” taskforce member Mahbub Zaman told the Dhaka Tribune.
“Only in a single meeting we decided to establish the new ICT ministry. We also took some other decisions, but as we could not meet again, most never saw the light of day,” said Zaman, who was the president of BASIS (Bangladesh Association of Software & Information Services) in 2010.
The decisions made by the taskforce included reducing bandwidth prices, introducing digital signatures and setting up multimedia classrooms in 20,500 schools with laptops and projectors.
The meeting also decided to build a software park at the Janata Tower in the capital’s Karwan Bazar area.
“I had lot more expectations from the digital taskforce, but have been frustrated so far,” said Ananya Raihan, taskforce member and executive director of DNet.
There was also a discussion about digital land management in the 2010 meeting, but as the taskforce did not meet again, the Asian Development Bank withdrew funding, sources said.
“And now in this (2013) manifesto, Awami League promises to introduce digital land system within the next five years,” a source said.
