Government launches Service Portal and Forms Portal

In an effort to centralize all the information regarding Bangladesh government, such names, addresses and contact method of availing services in all the ministries and departments, Bangladesh government has officially launched two brand new websites: services.portal.gov.bd and forms.gov.bd in a press conference yesterday.

The press conference was held at the Bangabondhu National Conference Center. Ms Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, the currently presiding honorable speaker of the national parliament, who was present as the member of the parliaments guest of honor inaugurated the websites. United Nations Development Project (UNDP) and Bangladesh governments Access to Information (A2i) bureau jointly organized the press conference.

At the website, 400 of all the information regarding the different ministries, departments, initiatives in district and division level have been presented. The information is presented systematically, using a top down approach, for example: Ministry, Division, District, town and so on. The information provided includes services the government provides and the relevant laws, processes, expenses and process times. This is intended to brief citizens regarding what they want to know without having to go the ministry office. To provide better service to the citizens of Bangladesh through better technology, the A2i has also created 36 distinct “Service Profiles” to cover all the major services provided by the Bangladesh government.

Dubbed Bangladesh Forms Portal or forms.gov.bd  was created with the goal of making any a sort of application submission or form submission an easy procedure. The launching of this service is considered a milestone on the road to developing our governments e-services. Currently, over a 1000 different forms are available on the site for public access. Currently more types of forms are being added and work on online form submission is going on. Upon completion of this initiative, it would be possible for citizens to apply or submit forms using the website without added costs or hassles.

Also present at the launching ceremony was Mr Zunaid Ahmed Palak, State Minister of Information and Communications Technology Division, Md Nazrul Islam, Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister, Ms Pauline Tamesis, UNDP Bangladesh Country Director etc.