No clear guidelines for ICT
The finance minister did not outline any clear guideline and specific allocation for ICT sector in his budget proposal.
AMA Muhith, the minister, proposed imposition of a fixed tax of Tk 100 on every single piece of replacement SIM.
But there will be no extra tax on SIM card supplied by mobile phone operators. Currently, there is a fixed tax of Tk 300 on the supply of every single piece of SIM card.
In his budget speech, Muhith said the process of connecting Bangladesh with the second submarine cable will be completed by 2016.
Every day, on an average, 40 lakh people are getting e-services from 4 thousand 526 Union Parishad information centres, he informed.
Tele-density and internet-density have gone up to 77.8 percent, and 23.7 percent respectively, he said.
The finance minister said Bangladeshi software and ICT services are being exported to 30 countries including USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and several European countries.
A report on digital land zoning map of 152 upazilas of 21 districts has been prepared and the land zoning operation in other 40 districts is well in progress.
Muhith said 478 upazillas among 484 upazillas are provided with internet connection through digital exchanges; various projects are under implementation for expansion of internet facilities to all upazillas.
At present, the programme for transforming 8000 rural post offices and 500 union post offices to E-centres is underway, he said.
In the current fiscal, 1,450 km of optical fiber network has been installed. A project titled ‘Introduction of 3G network technology and expansion of 2 .5 G network’ is under implementation.
With a view to building regional network among Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan, the process of establishing 58 km fibre optics between Banglaband and Pancha Gar and 30 Upazila community e-center, is almost at the final stage.
Feasibility study is going on to establish IT villages at seven divisional headquarters including Mohakhali in Dhaka.
Implementation of Digital Land Management System (DLMS) in 45 upazilas of 7 districts and operationalisation of 20 land information service centres in 20 upazilas are underway.
"We took the initiative in our last term to digitalise land settlement and record keeping. Land zoning process is underway in another 40 districts."
The process of digital surveys and record updating has begun in 5 mouzas of Savar upazila in Dhaka district and 48 mouzas of Palash upazila in Narsingdi district.
Computerisation of existing records of right in 55 districts will be completed by the next fiscal year.
"We will accelerate the development work for building the infrastructure of Hi-tech Park, Software Technology Park, ICT Incubator and Computer Village."
"Our government provides grants to encourage researchers to carry out research in science and technology. We will continue to provide scholarships and grants in this sector in the coming fiscal year."
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