Digital centres to transform villages into cities: LGRD Minister

[Black_cats]

Digital centres to transform villages into cities: LGRD Minister
Published: November 11, 2019 15:14:17

https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/...villages-into-cities-lgrd-minister-1573463657

LGRD Minister Tajul Islam - UNB/ file

Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (LGRD) Minister Tajul Islam on Monday said the government is willing to transform villages into cities through digital centres.

“We’re working to provide all facilities of cities to the rural people. Keeping that in mind, digital centres are working to transform villages into towns,” he said.

He made the remarks at a dialogue titled 'Innovation Talk' arranged by Access to Information (a2i) marking the 9th founding anniversary of Digital Center project in Agargaon.

“The vision of our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is to transform villages into cities, which means taking all facilities of cities to the doorstep of rural the population," he said.

Minister Islam said the educated young generations of rural areas tend to move to cities. “This won’t happen if we manage to provide them facilities similar to cities,” he said.

He mentioned that cities like Dhaka or Chattogram cannot accommodate population of the whole country, UNB reported.

"Village residents can have the facilities of cities through digital centres. We, alongside the ICT division, are working to make that happen," he added.

The minister said they are facing some problems, especially with the availability of digital centre locations. “Yet at the union level, there are separate dedicated rooms for almost all digital centres,” he said, assuring that minor issues will be addressed soon.

Currently, there are 5,865 digital centres across the country.

State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak said through these centres many facilities are being provided to the rural population on digital platforms.

"We still have to include 2,800 government facilities in the digital platforms," he added, noting that the government is working tirelessly to serve the people.

"Our ultimate goal is to ensure that government services are delivered to the citizens so that they don’t have to look for them," he said.

 

[Shorisrip]

The Bangladesh government needs to decentralize development, by implementing a plan to open factories in villages throughout the country (through either subsidies to private local/foreign companies or stateowned ones), and the adequate energy infrastructure to support it, as well as the needed road/rail networks to allow for the flow of goods. Currently, all factories are concentrated around urban areas or close to them (for obvious logistical reasons), but the industrial decentralization will allow for greater income equality, balanced development and of course much greater economic growth, which will also bring in needed social/human capital development and prevent growing overcrowding of urban areas. China has been really great at this regard, though they even lag behind in westerly areas like Xinjiang or Tibet.

 

[Bilal9]

The Bangladesh government needs to decentralize development, by implementing a plan to open factories in villages throughout the country (through either subsidies to private local/foreign companies or stateowned ones), and the adequate energy infrastructure to support it, as well as the needed road/rail networks to allow for the flow of goods. Currently, all factories are concentrated around urban areas or close to them (for obvious logistical reasons), but the industrial decentralization will allow for greater income equality, balanced development and of course much greater economic growth, which will also bring in needed social/human capital development and prevent growing overcrowding of urban areas. China has been really great at this regard, though they even lag behind in westerly areas like Xinjiang or Tibet.

China has export processing zones located on the South-East Coastal zones all the way North past Shanghai up to Dalian. Most of these EPZ areas have ports next to it or very close by - so shipping is super-fast. Things get made and they immediately get containerized and loaded on to Supercarrier ships bound for US West Coast ports (Long Beach, Seattle etc.). In the diagram below 'Open Cities' means 'bonded zones' free from customs restrictions. You can import industrial inputs and raw materials free of customs duty, add value using Chinese low cost labor then ship out final product.