Bhutan is probably the only country in the world that focuses on achieving Gross National Happiness (GNH) rather than GDP. A small country in the Himalayan region, it just saw the establishment of its first democratic government. It is a country that remained isolated from the rest of the world but not any more. Bhutan government is now becoming serious about the development of ICT (Information Communication Technology).
The current picture of ICT is pretty disappointing in Bhutan. Aside from government offices, there are very few personal computers and the use of computer is limited to urban areas only. Kuensel Online reports:
An IT official said that political will and commitment was crucial for things to happen in the IT sector. “The right people or the leaders have to be driven. For example, in Hyderabad, India, where the chief minister saw an opportunity in ICT and changed things around,” he said. “If the will is not there, the budget won’t come.”
Director Tenzin Choeda said that the total budget to develop ICT during the ninth five-year plan was almost Nu 80 million, which is actually the cost of building one higher secondary school with boarding facilities. For the tenth plan, the budget has increased to almost Nu 2 billion and that is the same amount that the government would be spending to develop Thimphu’s urban area. “We need the budget to make things happen and for which we need concentrated attention from our leaders to develop ICT,” he said.
In the last two three years, the government built necessary infrastructure for the spread of internet around the country. Bhutan is now moving toward e-governance. Currently, almost all the application forms for government offices can be downloaded from Bhutan’s government web portal. In addition, there will be online issuance of security clearance, providing market rates of agricultural products, online forest clearance and land transaction. There are two major obstacles on the way of spreading internet around the country. One, lack of websites in the local language. Two, the high cost of internet.
Like Bhutan, Bangladesh is also facing similar problem. There are not many websites in Bengali language. As a result, people who does not know English do not know how to use internet. Both the government and private sector of these countries can come forward to solve this problem.
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Kuensel Online
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