Wednesday | 15 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Wednesday | 15 January 2025 | Epaper

Digital Bangladesh

Where Public Private Partnership is of the essence

Published : Saturday, 1 December, 2018 at 12:00 AM  Count : 1128
Syed Badrul Ahsan
Syed Badrul Ahsan

Syed Badrul Ahsan

Let there be no question about the role digitalization has been playing in Bangladesh over the last few years. Thanks to the increasing internet penetration across the land, the country is now fully and convincingly graduated to the information highway, which is another way of suggesting that Bangladesh has come level, or nearly, with the rest of the world in terms of ensuring a constantly expanding role for technology in the lives of its people.

Observe the role of Nagad (Cash). That may be a new term or a new exercise, but what is certainly remarkable about it is the manner in which it is helping the country to push newer frontiers of knowledge in the internet arena. In simple terms, Nagad is essentially a service which complements the government's pronouncements on a Digital Bangladesh through achieving results on the field. An enterprise of the Bangladesh Post Office, the digital financial service Nagad offers promise of a new sort, one that can only reinforce people's belief in the power of the digital services to bring about a change in their perspectives on life.

Nagad will make life easier. Consider the methodology involved in the programme.
It assists people to put in cash where they feel it is required; it enables them to take out cash where conditions demand that they do so, make purchased through cash cards, POS and QR codes. None of that is manual. In effect, it is aimed at meeting the day-to-day financial needs of people. Nagad is equipped to do that. Technology, as one can observe, is all.

With 9.05 crore internet users in Bangladesh -- and that is the figure till this year, compared to the earlier statistics of 7.71 crore -- Nagad not only looks forward to facilitate a sizable portion of the market but also means to contribute to an expansion of it in the coming years. That is but natural, considering that the reach of information technology remains vibrant and dynamic in Bangladesh. Observe some other areas where Nagad will be making its presence felt.  It must be considered in relation to what has been happening in the area of PPP contribution to the national economy, 49 projects to be precise. PPP initiatives have seen an increase in power generation in the country. At the same time, its contribution to improved medical services -- and all of these have been based on internet-related activities -- in places like Chittagong have been remarkable.

Public Private Partnerships have, from this point of view, have opened many paths to the introduction of private sector technology in the national development programme. And that is where Nagad comes in with its inspirational message. Nagad, besides looking into the services it means to provide as noted above, plans to re-introduce such socially essential schemes as cash cards that will be its own version of ATM cards. The aim is to provide customers with easy means of carrying out their regular transactions, which means an appreciable absence of physical or mental tension for them. That, again, is natural, for internet technology means to bring the world to the doorsteps of people. Nagad goes a step further. The services it provides are aimed to go all the way to the threshold of people's homes. Note that Nagad provides government approved higher transaction limits. That in more ways than one is a measure of relief for its customers.

In very broad terms, Nagad is a reflection of the diverse ways in which private and public partnership in disseminating the message of Digital Bangladesh can bring about positive changes in the lives of citizens. Or shall we call them netizens, for that is what most of them, more than 9 crore of the 16 crore people of the country, happen to be at present? Nagad is one more hint of the success of the G2P model of technology. With digitalization making increasing and newer penetrations in the various regions of government and non-government activities, it makes sense to argue that endeavours like Nagad can only carry the dream of a Bangladesh linked to the rest of the globe a good many strides ahead.

And that is progress indeed by any stretch of the term.

The writer is a senior journalist


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