Challenges

Like many other developing countries Bangladesh also has been facing the challenges of manual, in person, paper-based public service delivery. The highlighted challenges include the overwhelming number of paper documents that are costly to store and cause the waste of staff valuable working hours in searching for documents; lack of efficiency and lengthy processes of public service delivery (Red-tapism). Additionally, paper documents are at risk of being irrevocably lost for different reason, and make it remote service delivert impossible.

Toward a Solution

As part of actualizing ‘Vision-2021’, the Government of Bangladesh has focused on the Digital Bangladesh innitiative, and has made tremendous progress in making more and more services easily available to the people. e-Nothi (e-filing) is one of the flagship programmes of the Digital Bangladesh initiative, and serves as a single online platform for conducting official file management, targeting 19,000 government offices & 150,000 officials to serve 160 million people in Bangladesh.

As the Government seeks to simplify public service delivery through digitization, simultaneously it is focusing on digitizing government offices and building capacity of civil servants to become more technology savvy. Launched in 2016, the electronic filing initiative is a result of this intention, and aims to make government administrative duties more efficient and effortlessm and establish paperless government offices while diminishing the manual system.

Before introducing the ‘Electronic filing’ system in the government offices, officials used the paper-based manual system. This system was time consuming, and caused several issues: a huge number of files were stuck on different tables for long periods of time; knowing the status of a file was extremely difficult and required frequent visits and following up to have it move along, files were often misplaced leading to even lengthier delays. The e-filing system took on all these challenges, making service delivery a lot easier for the people.

Present Status:

Currently 8,200+ offices, 95,000+ users, 12,000+ e-Nothi mobile app users are active and still its expanding. A total number of 13,392,274 files has been disposed of, and the beneficiaries from e-Nothi are 19,611,670+. Our goal is to include 19k offices in e-filing system by 2021. a2i’s goal is to include 19k offices in e-filing system by 2021.

Impact

• The system is cost-effective as it saves money by transforming the manual system into an electronic system. Since its inception in March 2016, the initiative has saved BDT 1895 million by reducing paper expenses in file keeping, sending letters and other related expenses. If the system can be installed in all government offices, it will also bring savings in manpower and transportation, as letters will be delivered online.
• The ability to track down pending files through the electronic filing increases responsiveness, transparency and accountability in processing government files, and allows officials to work in a more timely and efficient manner.
• The initiative also means that citizens save time and money by reducing the number of visits to government offices.
• e-filing, also helps connect different offices, facilitating long-distance coordinated among government bodies and increasing efficiency. It paves the way of maintaining file management and record keeping in a way that ensures transparency, accountability and dynamism at work at its best.
• The mobile application of the electronic filing system also makes office work easier. If someone is engaged in other work outside of the office, he or she can now log in in the system on their mobile phone. This enables the quick disposal of the file as well.
• Within the e-governance system in Bangladesh, a platform called ’Eksheba’ (https://eksheba.gov.bd/) has been created as a platform to easily create the opportunity to apply online for government service. In this platform, offices can easily create service application forms through the service builder. Here, applicants can apply online which can be disposed through ‘Electronic filing’. This platform has the opportunity to create a profile of the service provider and once the information and documents are uploaded it can be used for further application.
• During Covid-19 Pandemic, e-filing facilitates WFH (work from home) opportunity keeping govt. offices in regular normal mood. As contact with physical objects i.e. papers, printers, pen, staplers etc. are not required, e-filing also is lessening the risk of massive contagion. As a result, use of e-file increases to three/four folds during recent time.

Besides positive effects, some challenges of the ‘e-Nothi’ system have been identified, such as lack of digital infrastructure, ensuring server stability, necessary hardware, capacity development etc. “Team Nothi” is working to mitigate those challenges and make the system more sustainable. 

This solution can be replicated in any country with the necessary networking facilities, to ensure fastest and effective office operations and standard public service delivery.