Digital Jessore: a model to copy

Salim Reza, who runs one of the many Union Information and Service Centres in Jessore, feeds miscellaneous land-related complaints to the district office -- via internet.
Gone are the days of having to make a merry-go-round of trips, bribing and tricky negotiations to place requests or complaints to the Jessore district office.
Now a mere visit to one of the 91 such centres, set up in 2010 under the Access to Information (A2I) programme of the Prime Minister's Office, will get the job done.
This is the 'Digital Bangladesh' that the government has envisioned and has been testing on the Jessore district for a year now.
“Now, people do not need to go from desk-to-desk at the district office. They are getting the same services from just one counter in an unbelievably fast manner,” said Mustafizur Rahman, the deputy commissioner (DC) of Jessore district.
Take, for instance, the case of obtaining a land ownership certificate. Previously, people had to go through nine stages; but now, it can be done with just four clicks of the mouse.
The response time from the district office, too, has shortened, significantly.
It cut the waiting time to three to seven days now, from 15 to 18 days earlier.
“It is possible as we are doing all our tasks online,” Rahman said. “Our objective is to take the service to the people very fast by ensuring transparency and accountability without the engagement of any middleman.”
Since the start of the pilot project, some 35,000 administrative queries were attended to, said the Jessore DC.
Not only has the bureaucratic nature of administration been done away with, monitoring of the quality of education under the Jessore Education Board has been made easier.
All the 3,300 academic institutions of the Jessore Board have been connected to the district web portal.
“I can see how many students are present at the classes through the web,” said Rahman, adding that people can now apply for certificates by submitting applications online.
This remarkable digitisation of the district has not gone unnoticed; the project has been awarded in the e-Asia, an annual international event for ICT development, in 2011.
Furthermore, on Thursday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina pronounced Jessore as the first 'digital district' of Bangladesh, at the inauguration of the district e-centre, the heart of the automated system.
Nazrul Islam Khan, ICT secretary and national project director of A2I, said other districts would be digitised in the same manner as Jessore.
The online submission for land ownership certificates started in Jessore on September 11 and so far the office has provided 111,000 documents, the DC said.
On an average, 500 applications are submitted to the DC office every day, he added.
Reza, who runs the info service centre at Nowapara Union-4 as an entrepreneur, said most of his works are related to landownership certificates. His other responsibilities include typing, filling in various forms, e-mailing, taking photographs and scanning.
He has been in the business since 2010 and the government provided him all the logistics including computer, camera, printer, internet modem, projector and screen, and also the training to run the business.
The government has already set up around 5,000 Union Information and Services Centres across the country. Around 10,000 people are working in these centres and half of them are women.
But Jessore district is different and running far ahead of other areas.
Rahman, the DC, said all the administrative letters to other 240 offices of the district are sent through the web.
At the same time, the DC as well as other officials can check the status of any work.
Rahman said he not only looks after the activities of all the offices and educational institutions in the district through the system, he also sets his appointments with people online.
People can get all the notices of the DC office at the portal, he said.