Govt aims to extend broadband internet to all VDCs in three fiscals

KATHMANDU:

The government is preparing to come up with ‘National Action Plan’ that aims to make broadband internet service available to all village development committees (VDCs) within the next three fiscal years.

Promotion of local goods, tourist destinations and preparation of digital content for school, among others, are incorporated in the plan.

A draft of the action plan was submitted to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment by the Department of Information Technology (DoIT) for approval recently. The plan is based on government’s policies and programmes. The budget for the current fiscal year has also targeted to set up Integrated ICT Centres in each election constituent.

Education, tourism, health, agriculture and local products are the five main sectors that the action plan intends to cover under its projects to be implemented in the next three fiscal years. Policies and programmes of the current fiscal had talked of formulating a national action plan and implement it gradually to deliver basic services related to education, health, agriculture and local production.

DoIT had added tourism during the course of drafting the action plan stating that it makes huge contribution to the economy and holds immense potential.

“In agriculture, we have proposed developing websites to help farmers directly take their goods to the

market without involving middlemen,” said Ramesh Raj Subedi, director of DoIT. “Likewise, in education, there are plans to come up with and use digital school content.”

Marketing of local goods through IT and project implementation on telemedicine and e-health services have also been planned. As per the draft, the government will require investment of estimated Rs 1.01

billion to implement the incorporated projects.

According to the draft action plan, setting up 240 integrated ICT Centres will require an estimated

Rs 512 million, education sector will need Rs 237 million, health Rs 104.5 million, agriculture Rs 14.5 million and tourism-related projects Rs 57.5 million, among others.

DoIT officials said that all the projects will be implemented in joint collaboration with the concerned government agencies in the next three fiscal years — from 2015-16 to 2017-18. The action plan will be reviewed by the Technology Ministry and sent to the Cabinet for approval.

As it is based on government’s policies and programmes andrequires involvement of multiple government authorities, it will require approval from the Cabinet.

Major points

• Extension of broadband connection to all VDCs

• Establishment of an integrated ICT Centre in all 240 election constituents

• IT human resource development and management

• Promotion of locally produced goods with help of IT

• Promotion of tourist goods and destinations through IT

• Interactive information portal for marketing of local agro and livestock products

• Implementation of telemedicine and e-health projects, health-related mobile app development

• Preparation of digital courses for school level students

Source: THT