Citizens still can’t access govt digital services: CPD

Despite many digital government services available online, large numbers of citizens are forced to visit government offices, submit paper documents and make payments in person, the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) said on Monday.

Only 31.9 per cent of women surveyed by the CPD said they could complete government e-services entirely online. For the remaining 68.1 per cent, they have to go outside their homes or visit government offices at some stage of the process.

The findings were presented at a dialogue titled “E-Governance at the Local Government Institutions: Current State and Way Forward”, organised by the CPD under the Nagorikata: Civic Engagement Fund in Dhaka.

The study found that 20.8 per cent of women could complete most of the process online but still had to deal with some paperwork, while 38 per cent could only submit the application online and had to complete the remaining steps offline.

Another 1.8 per cent had to go to government offices for follow-up after submitting applications online, while 7.5 percent completed the whole process offline even though the service was supposed to be available online.

Among women who had to visit offices, 54.3 per cent said they needed to submit documents physically and 51.8 per cent had to collect documents in person.

 Some 28.9 percent needed to provide signatures and 22.3 per cent had to make payments physically.

The study also found that 6.6 percent of women said they had to visit local government officials to pay bribes.

CPD Research Fellow Tamim Ahmed, who presented the findings with Research Associate Sabiha Sharmin, said a service should not simply be called an e-service because its application form is online. If citizens still have to visit an office to complete the process, the service is not truly digital in practice.

The study covered 2,611 citizens, including 1,382 young people and 957 women, along with people from indigenous communities, char and haor areas, slums and persons with disabilities.