Kathmandu, Feb 26: The E-Governance Board under the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (OPMCM) on Tuesday unveiled the 'E-Governance Blueprint' with the aim to achieve transformative changes in the existing government affairs through digital technology, making public services paperless.
The draft of the blueprint that was prepared on January 27 was released Tuesday, according to the board's Chief Executive Officer, Dipesh Bista.
Prior to this, the board held discussions and interactions with multiple stakeholders to receive their feedback regarding the draft of the blueprint.
The document cites the government's commitment to making government services prompt, transparent, accountable, and effective with the support of digital technology by discouraging physical presence in service-delivery facilities.
The development of infrastructure, policy, and legal structures required for the implementation of digital systems, institutional capacity enhancement and operation of and facilitation for digital governance-related governance innovation, research and development endeavors have been highlighted as the objectives of the document.
Comedy of errors
The blueprint has identified seven strategic pillars for digital transformation and they are: a clear governance framework for digital governance; legal and regulatory frameworks, and continued development of digital promoters; digital literacy and skills development; digital standards; formulation and implementation of guidelines; strengthened regional and international cooperation; and innovation, and research and development.
The document has assimilated the spirit of ICT Policy of Nepal - 2072 BS, Government Enterprise Architecture Directive-2076 BS and Digital Nepal Framework-2076 BS.
Amidst increasing IT advancement and its growing attraction, the blueprint is expected to be useful in strengthening inter-agency coordination through the exchange of data, creating pressure for making the public service delivery further transparent and effective.
The E-governance blueprint was prepared in view of the arrangement of a global compact government framework as well as other internationally established models, considering the need of a national strategic document.
The blueprint mentions the need for development, strengthening and use of common infrastructures and standards, innovation and procedural simplicity in public service delivery, guarantee of safety and privacy from plan formulation, guarantee of easy accessibility of services provided through digital medium, transparency and promotion of e-governance.
Similarly, the blueprint has identified challenges such as the limited role of the board on policy-level issues to maintain digital good governance. Other challenges include functional problems, problems related to management framework for e-governance, lack of citizen service centre to facilitate public service delivery.
Likewise, other challenges include formulation of digital guidelines and directives and their implementation, problems in strengthening regional and international cooperation, and to make the issue of public procurement further transparent and competitive.
Various activities have also been determined for the next three years--preparing draft of e-governance act, restructuring of the Department of Information Technology, establishment of Data Protection Authority and establishment of data exchange platform.
After receiving the final draft of the blueprint prepared by international consultants with the technical support of the United Nations Development Programme on April 29, 2024, it was again internalized from the perspective of Nepal.
The final draft of the blueprint was received on September 30, 2024 from Nepali consultants and final shape was given to it on January 27, 2025.
The fifth meeting of the E-Governance Board held under the chairmanship of the chief secretary on January 28 had decided to send the blueprint draft to the concerned body for opinion.
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