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Speakers at a dialogue yesterday called for harnessing information communication technology (ICT) as means for cutting poverty.

The lack of basic ICT infrastructures, including telecommunication and able manpower, is presenting a drag on the growth and excellence of the sector, they observed. They were speaking on "Information and Communication Technology" organised by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in collaboration with The Daily Star and the Prothom Alo at Millennium Inn in Khulna.

The speakers also called for providing greater access to information, lowering charges of telephone and Internet and bringing Internet gateway under a single platform for preventing youngsters from surfing 'unwanted' sites. The dialogue was held under the regional consultation meeting on National Policy Review Forum 2003.

Prof Nowsher Ali, director of Bangladesh Institute of Technology (BIT), Khulna, attended the dialogue as the chief guest with Dr Rafiqul Islam, head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the institute in the chair. Prof Ali called on the civil society to play a proactive role to take the nation's ICT quest ahead. He said, "We need to develop technology keeping in mind our own tradition which can reach and benefit the grassroots people."

"We need to develop applied technology for a knowledge-based society." Dr Ananya Raihan, a research fellow of CPD, said Bangladesh's ICT policy lacked vision for human resources development. "The ICT policy does not consider poverty alleviation issues, it is rather business-centric when it should be people-centric," he added. Raihan termed the vision of the ICT policy 'highly ambitious' as it wanted to establish a knowledge-based society by 2006.

Putting the policy vision in question, he asked: "How would they be able to establish such a society by 2006 when the literacy rate took 32 years down the road of independence to hit 50 per cent?" He said the ICT sector was not given due attention in the ICT policy as well as in the government's Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.

Abu Syeed Khan, a taskforce member, said Bangladesh's tele-density in terms of fixed line stood at 0.6 per cent, a long way off many South Asian countries. He, however, said four mobile phone operators in the private sector took the number of their subscribers to over 10 lakh. Focusing on interconnection, he said, "It is still a big hurdle to mobile communication."

Khan said 90 per cent of mobile phone users had no access to mainstream fixed line Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) connectivity because of the absence of interconnection. "Bangladeshi mobile phone operators have formed a mobile-to-mobile intercom rather than cellular phone networks due to absence of interconnection," he said.

Khan said the problem would be resolved soon with the implementation of a project. The BTTB has recently signed a deal with private mobile operators to provide more connectivity. The BTTB has recently completed Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) that provides Internet access at a speed of 125 kbps (kilobyte per second) without keeping the telephone lines busy. The network has brought Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Sylhet and Khulna closer.

"Educational institutions can have their connection without installing own VSAT (very small aperture terminals) or subscribing expensive lease lines," Khan said. Anir Chowdhury, another task force member, said the government should put more emphasis on ICT by doubling the opportunity for its study. Chowdhury said the government should patronise locally developed software through incentives, establish more IT parks ensuring private sector participation, train more IT teachers for spreading the education, standardise IT education by making it mandatory for winning ISO certificate.

"To foster the growth of ICT sector, the government should make IT education compulsory up to the degree level," he added. Chowdhury said the government should be more careful for raising the standard of English as none can excel in IT without skills in the language. He said Bangladesh had bright prospects in different IT enabled services like call centres due to outsourcing by many developed nations. He said Bangladeshis still use computer as a typewriter without understanding the flexibility, power and range of the machine. Chowdhury called for training government officials for e-governance.

CPD Executive Director Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, who co-ordinated the dialogue, said people should be given greater access to information to enable them to alleviate poverty. Bangladesh still has opportunity to use ICT knowledge for complex land administration, which suffers multifarious complexities, he added.

Prof AKM Azad of BIT, Khulna said there was no testing laboratory to determine standard of e-products. He demanded installation of a countrywide fibre optic network before hooking Bangladesh to the information superhighway via a submarine cable. "Otherwise, we would not be able to harvest desired benefit from the expensive submarine cable network," he added.

Bangladesh has joined a consortium of 12 countries with 14 operators to get connected with the cyberway at a cost of $720 million. Former BTTB chairman Fazlur Rahman called for allowing the private sector to spread the fibre optic network. "The private sector could use PDB's power line network to spread the fibre optic network," he said.

Dr Rafiqul Islam stressed people's greater access to information. He also underscored the need for coordination between educational institutions and industries to develop modern products. Referring to youngsters' interest in Internet browsing, he said 90 per cent of them surf unwanted sites. "There should be a centralised gateway to Internet to block youngsters' access to unwanted contents," said Arief Hossin, a young IT specialist.

G C Gosh and Dr Shibendra Shekhar Sikder, both from BIT Khulna; M A Quyyum, principal of Institute of Library, Arts, Commerce and Science; Feroja Begum, district information officer, Khulna; Provash Chandra Biswas of World Vision and Mohammad Arief Hossain also spoke.