The business community on Monday said that implementation of Digital Bangladesh would not be possible without adequate infrastructural development in information technology, tax cut and digitalisation of the government secretariat first.
They said the private sector could work together with the government to face the challenges in implementing Digital Bangladesh in providing the IT-based services throughout the country.
They were speaking at a seminar on Digital Bangladesh: Private Sector Perspective, organised by Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and industry at its auditorium.
Prime Minister's personal secretary-1 and also the project director of Access to Information, Nazrul Islam Khan, presented the keynote paper at the seminar presided over by FBCCI president AK Azad.
Speaking on the occasion, Bangladesh Computer Samity president Mostafa Jabbar said that the government was yet to facilitate the information and communication technology sector for achieving the goal of digital Bangladesh.
'Although the government reduced the bandwidth fee to Tk 10,000 from Tk 27,000 six months ago, the gazette in this regard has not been published yet. So the consumers cannot avail the opportunity, said Jabbar.
He said that the government imposed 15 percent value added tax on internet service in this fiscal year though the businesses had urged it not to impose VAT on the IT services.
'I don't understand how it could be possible to digitalise 5 lakh class rooms across the country imposing increased tax on the internet service,' said the BCS president.
He also suggested that the government should digitalise the secretariats first, and then extend the digitalisation across the country. Otherwise, implementation of Digital Bangladesh would not be possible, he added.
FBCCI former vice-president Dewan Sultan Ahmed said that digitalisation should start from top government activities spreading it to the bottom of the country to ensure E-governance and E-commerce.
Sultan Ahmed claimed that the price of digital projector increased to $750 from $300 as the government increased duty on import of projector.
He said that the government's plan to provide a projector to each school could not be possible if the price of projector was not reduced.
AK Azad said the country has much shortage of ICT-based proper education, skilled human resource and professionalism. Professional management and finance crisis in ICT sector constraints to software development.
'Access to internet with a low cost and uninterrupted power supply across the country are required for digitalisation,' said Azad adding that the government should work with the private sector and other stakeholders to overcome the challenges.
FBCCI directors Abdul Huq, Obidur Rahman and Abul Kashem also spoke at the session.
Source : New Age
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