AL govt’s development campaign for Tk 160 cr

LED displays in 492 upazilas

Special Correspondent: The Awami League formed the government for the third consecutive term after winning the Eleventh Parliamentary Election in 2016. About three and a half years have passed in this period also. After coming to power with the promise of building a ‘digital Bangladesh’, the Awami League-led government has done a lot of development work for 13 consecutive years. Various government services are now available online. There has also been visible development of physical infrastructure.
The dream Padma Bridge awaits inauguration.Several mega projects including Metrorail, Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, LNG Terminal construction project are also visible. Besides, the government has also undertaken various development works and projects in the year of Mujib and the golden jubilee of independence.
The government has undertaken projects to promote these development works across the country. Under the project, 538 LED displays will be installed in 492 upazilas of the country. The speech of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman will be broadcast 24 hours a day along with the development work of the government on these big displays.
Besides, documentaries on the real history of the country including the great liberation war and language movement will be displayed in it.
In addition to permanent LED displays, there will be 100 digital mobile vans to deliver the campaign to people in remote areas of the country. The development work of the government will be promoted by visiting different areas in these digital vans. In this project 560 officers will be trained for capacity building for full time management and maintenance.
Besides, seminars and discussion meetings will be organized to increase public awareness in this regard.
The government’s development work and public awareness project will cost Taka 160 crore 8 lakh 63 thousand. The total proposed cost of the project including the revenue sector is Tk 16 crore 23 lakh. The proposed consultancy cost for the project is estimated at Tk 1.82 crore. In the meantime, the Department of Information and Communication Technology has sent the proposal of this project to the Department of Socio-Economic Infrastructure of the Planning Commission.
The Department of Information and Technology says that content from Dhaka will be broadcast centrally on all LED displays across the country. That means people all over the country can watch the same video at the same time. Commercial advertisements will also run in between the videos aired on the display. As a result, it is possible to cover the entire cost of the project in terms of revenue from advertising.
Why this project
The project is being taken up for various reasons, said the Department of Information and Communication Technology. According to the department, digital centers have been set up in 408 wards of 4,554 unions, 325 municipalities and 12 city corporations across the country through the Access to Information (A2I) project. From these digital centers, 45 lakh people are able to receive 60 types of services every month.
The activities undertaken by various government departments on the occasion of the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman need to be presented and disseminated to the public. In order to ensure proper implementation of various government e-services and for the welfare of the people, it is necessary to ensure proper dissemination and dissemination of all government activities, information and services in building a digital Bangladesh. That is why the project is being taken up.
If this project is implemented, it will be possible to bring the great liberation war, real history of the country, various government activities, information and modernization of services to the doorsteps of common people easily. This will increase civic involvement and awareness, which will be helpful in establishing good governance in the country.
Under the proposed project, LED display boards will be set up in 492 upazilas. It will have a digital content repository system ready for publicity, which will contain a wide range of content related to various government activities, information and services. Distribution and monitoring system will be created for proper maintenance, control and supervision of this content. Training will be given to 560 officers and employees for capacity building to facilitate the work.
The government has announced ‘Vision 2021: Digital Bangladesh’ to make Bangladesh a middle-income country by ensuring the use of information and communication technology in all areas of the country. Various ministries and departments of the government are taking various steps in their respective fields to ensure ICT services at the doorsteps of people of all classes and professions.
Digital management is working to ensure co-operation and co-ordination in adopting integrated action plans for various service activities and initiatives including e-governance, e-infrastructure, e-health, e-commerce of different ministries.
The use of digital media in all government services has made the service system much easier and more corruption free. Various important civic service application forms are available online.Such as: land deeds, life insurance, payment of rural electricity bills, all government forms, results of public examinations, online university admission, online birth-death registration, VGF-DGD list, citizen certificate, citizen application, agricultural information, health counseling etc. Using mobile app to buy taxi, market, bus, train, plane, movie tickets.
If the project is implemented, various initiatives and development works of the government will be widely disseminated among the people. Awareness of young people about ICT in particular will increase tremendously. This will increase the capacity of the people in remote areas of the country as well as create opportunities for self-employment, which will play a great role in alleviating the overall poverty of the country, claims the Department of Information and Communication Technology.
If you want to know the Joint Head (Joint-Secretary) of the Department of Socio-Economic Infrastructure of the Planning Commission Abdur Rauf said, “538 LED displays will be set up across the country to promote development.” The project evaluation committee has met about the project. It has been recommended to amend some aspects of the project. The Department of Information and Communication Technology will send the project back to us as per the recommendation. Then we will make a summary to raise it in ECNEC, he added.
Director of Information and Communication Technology (Planning and Development) Vanessa Rodrigues told, “Initiatives have been taken to install LED displays in 492 upazilas. However, the project has not been approved yet. A working committee has been formed to carry out the project activities in remote areas through mobile digital vans. The committee is headed by a senior secretary of the ICT department. A letter has also been sent to the ICT department from the Ministry of Information in this regard.