digital ministers go videogenic
In about two weeks, all ministers will be able to sit on their rotating chairs and attend any meeting among themselves without having to move out of their offices, thanks to videoconferencing.
“It will be done in the next two to three weeks,” said Karma Wangdi, head of the application division from the department of information technology and telecom (DITT).
“We are fitting big screens in the minister’s offices but our performance will solely depend on the feedback that we will get from the ministers,” he added, “We are done with the tendering and procurements of equipments and are in the process of installing and testing.”
The communication minister, Lyonpo Nandalal Rai, said, “It’s time we authenticate the idea of going digital.”
The minister said offices should be increasingly using technology at their disposal. With Local Area Network (LAN) made accessible in Gasa and Dagana through radio links, Lyonpo Nandalal Rai said all 20 dzongkhags have LAN but offices still resort to corresponding through letters rather than using emails. “It has to change,” he said.
Toward an IT drive, the ninth five year plan placed special priority to building wide area network (WAN) and LAN in all the 20 dzongkhags. It was a key assignment for the communication ministry including digital signing to allow officials to sign digitally on online documents. The Digital Signature Project could not come through because of the department’s inability to deploy secure online applications due to the lack of a digital signature authentication framework.
A WAN is a computer network that covers a broad area linking different regions (like the dzongkhags) while LAN is a computer network covering a small physical area like an office or a small groups of buildings.
Officials from the ministry confirmed they have completed laying down fiber optic cables for the WAN and LAN projects. Thimphu is already connected by a wide area network and all the remaining 19 dzongkhags have local area networks.
“We have connected all the LAN to the WAN as per the 10th five year plan to enhance Virtual Private Network that enables secure network over unsecure internet,” said Karma Wangdi. “We are riding on Bhutan Telecom to have a government wide network,”
The speed of the internet connectivity is high in Thimphu because it is connected by fiber optics while the other dzongkhags are connected with a 512KBPS line but is easily upgradable depending on requirements.
After completing the videoconferencing for the ministers, the next project for DITT will be to connect all the dzongkhag LAN to the WAN in Thimphu.
The DITT team is also looking into possibilities of procuring equipments to install desktop video conferencing systems for the ministers. Karma Wangdi said the procurement of the related equipments will be close to Nu 12mn.
SARASWATI in Business Bhutan