Bangladesh’s IT project awaits approval for a year

The Planning Commission could not clear a $305 million (Tk2,592 crore) project to streamline the government’s information technology infrastructure and bring all digital services under one platform even one year after the World Bank approved a loan for the work.

Even though the Planning Commission’s Socio-Economic Infrastructure Division convened meetings of the Project Evaluation Committee thrice on the project proposal sent by the ICT Division, no decision could be made to present it before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) meeting as costs estimated in a number of areas were deemed excessive, officials responsible for the implementation of the project say.

The project, entitled “Enhancing Digital Government and Economy”, has been designed to create an integrated digital platform to be shared by all of the digital service providers in both public and private sectors through cloud computing.

It is expected to help the government reduce IT costs by Tk1,700 crore as well as increase the private-sector IT firms’ revenue by around Tk2,500 crore.