Posted on 22nd Dec 2024 01:09:55 AM Public Administration
Abstract
This study focuses on use of electronic knowledge or ICT in all-round functions of governance in public offices of Rajshahi for strengthening connectivity of government with officials which is considered as a dynamic instrument to establish ‘Digital Bangladesh’. E-Governance can accomplish the dictate of government in formulating a new vision of how government officials are coping up with this efficient, accountable, and transparent and performance government system. The study begins by describing the concept of e-Governance and the challenges faced by the employees and provide an overview of the basic theoretical and practical issues and prospects of e-governance. The paper not only depicts the challenges of e-governance on the way to ascertain Digital Bangladesh but also highlights the prospects of e-governance in Bangladesh. It is true that proper trainings for e-Governance in Rajshahi are insufficient. However, rapid growth of information technology development and the adopting capacity of the officials presumably overcome this barrier. Finally, recommendations are provided which, if implemented through appropriate management, can help to remove the way of e-governance challenges of public offices in Rajshahi City.
1.1 Introduction
The general concept about governance is to maintain the work of government but as with the time flows different types of governing system has come along but the governances’ demand of this 21st century is E-governance which is more convenient, customer-oriented, and cost effective and it shares information through electronic media. Specifically, e-Governance harnesses information and communication technologies (such as Wide Area Networks, Internet and mobile computing) to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other organs of government.
As a middle income country Bangladesh has some its own needs to move towards e-governance regarding its ambition to ensure better citizen services. However, with frail socioeconomic realities the country has to face many challenges, even in the very process of planning for development, for example in the process of identifying priorities, as she still struggles for fulfilling basic needs (like food, shelter, health, education, pure drinking water, sanitation, etc.). In this context, transforming towards e-governance needs to follow a goal-oriented plan of action. Besides, it needs research support to achieve desired goals and to measure the goal this research has done on the public offices of rajshahi city.
1.2 Background
Now, e-governance is a very popular phrase in the development debates of Bangladesh. The term e-governance is known to people by different names, for example, to the mass it is computer, to the academics it is e-governance, to the specialist it is ICT, to the students it is a discipline of computer sciences and to the politicians it is digital Bangladesh. Since the last national election of 2008, the term ‘Digital Bangladesh’ has become more popular in the nation.
The very idea of an e-governance is in cloak of ‘Digital Bangladesh’ which started as part of the election manifesto of the present ruling party. After the landslide victory of Awami League the honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared to transform the country into "Digital Bangladesh by 2021” (Vision, 2021) which targets the establishment of a resourceful and modern country by 2021 through effective use of electronic governing system. It generated enormous enthusiasm among the people and they started thinking it as a magic wand that might help in improving the poor governance features of the country and thus ensuring good governance but now it seems that the governance’s pocketing has just changed but the materials are the same, that same old resource issues whether it is human or something else, funding issues and inefficient officials. So, as the city of education, city of silk, city of peace and the ancient capital of Vijay Sen, rajshahi city’s e-governance is not free from mentioned problems. This city, of 145.6 mi² and 448,087 lakh people, has its own value to be updated and use this modern theme but the public offices service delivery level is not up to the mark and that is why it is time to gear up this electronic process in the government offices.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
Every topic or initiative has some objectives to define its ultimate goal and this study on e-governance on public offices of silk city has some objectives too to state its aim of research and the objectives are:
1.4 Rationality of the study
Researches must stand on some relevant issues because a research needs to prove its rationality with its logical reasons. Like this, this study has some rational reasons to be selected for research. With the passing time new methods and techniques have been using in e-governance but how the officials and the offices are coping up with it and if they cannot then what are the reasons and most importantly to observe the progress scale of e-governance in Rajshahi city this research is being conducting and these are the main rationale reasons behind this study.
1.5 Research Method
Research Method means identifying the way of doing any particular research. In terms of defining the importance of research method C.R Kothari quoted that, “when we talk of research methodology we not only talk of the research methods but also consider the logic behind the methods we use in the context of our research study and explain why we are using a particular method or technique and why we are not using others so that research results are capable of being evaluated either by the researcher himself or by others”. There are various types of research methods like survey method, focus group method, case study method etc. Among these methods interviewing process under survey method have been done for doing this research.
This study is a research work. It is an elaborative description from the collected information. The questions were prepared on the basis of the required information. In order to make it formal and inclusive I have gone through a wonderful experience while collecting and combining all information from Primary and Secondary Data source:
Primary Data Source
I have interviewed 36 officers and 10 beneficiaries from 12 different public offices of Rajshahi City for the purpose of this study. For this reason I have to interview them directly, on face to face.
Secondary Data source
In terms of collecting information from secondary I have followed the following sources:
1.6 Conclusion
E-governance is one of the ongoing and out reaching step of this current world. It has made the world a speedy world in the sectors of governance and to make the governing process easier several paths are being followed. In this chapter discussions are made about how the research is done.
2.1 Introduction
Researches on e-governance has been done before regarding challenges, structure, model but how the public offices are coping up with it is not done before, particularly in a divisional city. Because of that in this research it has been tries to identify the challenges of public offices regarding e-governance and what the future prospects will be. So, to make the idea clear, the researches done on e-governance are being discussed below.
2.2 Literature Review
A literature review is a systematic scrutiny of possibly all printed materials relating earlier results of relevance to the particular subject matter under study. More specifically it is a critical analysis of published sources, or literature, on a particular topic. It is an assessment of the literature and provides a summary, classification, comparison and evaluation. At postgraduate level literature reviews can be incorporated into an article, a research report or thesis.
Basically, there are 3 aspects in literature review:
To do a research and as a rational researcher, one have no choice but to do literature review. (Bernard, 2000:87). A researcher should undertake extensive literature survey connected with the problem. For this purpose, academic journals, conference proceedings, government reports, books etc., must be tapped depending on the nature of the problem.
In this term, researches done on E-governance have helped this paper in a significant way.
In E-Governance in Bangladesh: Initiatives and Challenges, done by Shah Mohammad Sanaul Hoque, published in 2005,showed that E-governance is a citizen-centric concept that intends to provide public services at the ease and option of citizens, keep citizens informed and solicit their voice in the functioning of government.
A2I (Access to Information Programme) has prepared E-governance Horizon Scan Report in 2007 where they tried to realize the “vision” for e-Governance in Bangladesh’s imperative to understand the current readiness of the country, citizens’ Expectations, supporting policies, infrastructure and connectivity issue and human resources to fulfill this vision.
In electronic journal of e-Government published in 2011, on the topic of Public Sector e-Service Development in Bangladesh: Status, Prospects and Challenges, has been revealed that sometimes there is no policy barrier for taking some steps like e-payment and digital signature but there are problems regarding people making understand properly the use of e-services given by government.
E-Governance and E-Government in Bangladesh: Performance, Challenges and Remedies; done by Md. Rizwan Hassan, published in Asian Journal in 2013, tried to evaluate performance of Bangladesh in implementing e-governance and to recognize probable challenges and ways to overcome those but there was no data on people’s participation or service delivery through e-governance.
Md. Shahadat Hossain and Roshnia Saba, in the assignment of E-Governance in Bangladesh: Definition, Problems, Implementation and Future Development, have found that E-governance of Bangladesh requires a strong project management, monitoring and evaluation mechanism which is not an impossible task but the country needs to boost up its infrastructure so that it can transfer its liabilities into possibilities.
Sharmin, Z., & Samiul Islam, M., in the article named, Impact of e-governance in public offices: Bangladesh perspective–case study of office of digital controller of accounts, Sylhet, said that, e-Governance is itself a dynamic and contemporary issue in the process of administrative development. In terms of the developing nature of Bangladesh operative implementation of e-Governance is not always easy for various constraints like, lack of infrastructural setup, expertise in ICT workforce, and economic resources. Today’s Government has to play multi-dimensional role and for this e- Governance requires participation of all participatory agencies and at the same time, government policy formulation should be ready, inclusive, and relevant to the present and future need. One of the most important suggestion is given in this study that is capacity building for more effective e-governance.
Pathak, M., & Kaur, G. observed in their article Impact of E-Governance on Public Sector Services that E-Governance is quite progressive in India. Their most popular services like e- transport, e-education, e-police, e-court and e-tax etc. In India E-Governance is also facing so many obstacles in times of working. In there, funding is the basic issue. Like Bangladesh they are also facing lack of people’s will to accept the E term due to lack of their knowledge. But new issue has come up in their article that is Privacy. Citizens have to give so much personal information while using online transactions which results in privacy issues and another one is language problem they are proposing for some language software which translates the English language into other languages so that citizens can understand and avail the services in their local languages. This study is quite full of challenges of e-governance and also it has also given possible solutions.
Chowdhury, M. M. H., & Satter, A. K. M. Z. (2012). The role of e-governance in creating digital Bangladesh, has found that Bangladesh is facing a lot of challenges to work on implementing E-governance system.
This paper has identified a number of challenges faced at both government and citizens’ level. This study predicts that the actual implementation of e-governance is a complex and lengthy task that may proceed well beyond the government’s target of 2021. From a citizen’s perspective, social issues such as lack of awareness, IT literacy, language barriers, and lack of access to the Internet will delay citizens from using E-government services, while from the government’s viewpoint financial and political constraints are the key challenges for executing E-governance that must be overcome.
But this is not the end these social issues are further compounded by technical complexities such as, the need of a strong ICT infrastructure and the demand to integrate business processes and technology across different government agencies to facilitate the efficient and effective delivery of e-services. So, according to this study strong technological background will help us to remove our barriers.
A study, done by Uddin, G., on topic of E-Governance of Bangladesh: Present scenario, expectation, ultimate target and recommendation, examines that effort by addressing the status of ICT in Bangladesh. It determines that e-government groundwork in Bangladesh is still in its primary stages and has not fulfilled its potential due to technical, infrastructural and political obstacles. But a coordinated effort of political leadership, bureaucrats, and private entrepreneurs could facilitate the desired development in the ICT sector and accelerate the presence of e-government in Bangladesh.
The primary focus of a study, done by Alam, M. S., & Hassan, M. S., on the topic of Problems when implementing e-governance systems in developing countries: A quantitative investigation of implementation problems in Bangladesh, was to determine the issues that are perceived as being the most problematic with regard to e-governance implementation according to user’s perspective. E-governance implementation in each sector has faced some individual problematic issues. According to this research proper planning, creating e-awareness, e-literacy the hurdles of e-governance can be steeped away.
2.3 Conclusion
In the time of doing any research previous studies are need to be considered. Keeping this in mind this literature review has been done. There, it is observed that though e-governance is a present-day term but by focusing on public offices there are only few to be found.
That is why “Challenges and Prospects of E-governance: A study on Public Offices of Rajshahi City” named research has been prepared, where the present and future of the e-governance of public offices are being discussed. In this study special focus is marked on individual challenges of public offices and their prospects. So, from this angle this research is different from other researches.
Bibliography
CONTENTS
Affirmation
Declaration
Acknowledgement
Abstract
Chapter 1: Introductory Discussion
Introduction
Background
Objectives of the Study
Rationality of the study
Research Method
Conclusion
Chapter 2: Literature review
Introduction
Literature reviewing
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework
Introduction
Concept of Governance
Concept of E-Governance
Background of E-Governance
Types of E-governance
Stages of E-Governance
Conclusion
Chapter 4: E-Governance: Bangladesh Perspective
Introduction
Historical Background
Policy and Legal Context
Evolution of A2i
Establishment of ICT Infrastructure
Placement in Global Ranking
Conclusion
Chapter 5: E-Governance: Public offices of Rajshahi City
Introduction
Public Offices
Challenges
Chapter 6: Recommendations, Prospects and Conclusion
Recommendations
Prospects
Conclusion
Bibliography
Research, Challenges, Prospects, E-governance, Study, Public, Offices, Rajshahi, City, Placement, Global, Ranking, ICT, Infrastructure, Evolution, A2i, Theoretical, Framework, Concept, Governance, Digital, Bangladesh, E-awareness, E-literacy
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