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Union Information Centers in Rural Bangladesh:A Study on Users’ Perception

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Union Information Centers in Rural Bangladesh:A Study on Users’ Perception

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Union Information Centers in Rural Bangladesh:A Study on Users’ Perception

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Union Information Centers in Rural Bangladesh: A Study on Users’ Perception

By Shaikh Abdus Salam* Syed Mahfujul Haque Marjan**

*
Dr. Shaikh Abdus Salam
is a Professor of Mass Communication and Journalism and the Director of Center for Advanced Research in
Arts and Social Sciences (CARASS) at the University of Dhaka,Bangladesh. Dr. Salam holds a
doctoral degree in Communication & Journalism from the University of Poona, India. His
research interest includes information and communication technology, health and population
communication and development communication.
**
Syed Mahfujul Haque Marjan
is a Lecturer of Criminology, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was graduated in Mass
Communication and Journalism from the University of Dhaka. His research interest focuses on
new media, political communication, broadcast journalism, terrorism, cyber crime, Islamis and
health & population communication. He can be contacted at: [email protected]

Abstract:
Bangladesh has been experiencing a boom in ICT sectors now a day. ‘Digital Bangladesh’ was
one of the major election pledges of the present government. As part of the fulfillment of this pledge the
government has established 4516 Union Services and Information Centers (USICs) under A2I
(Access 2 Information) programme and providing necessary ICT services at the grass root level of the local
administration of the country. There is no denying of the fact that Bangladesh has been remaining in a
lower position according to the global ICT index. Still there is a digital divide between rural and urban
area of the country too. It is also observed that so far the development has occurred in ICT sector is mainly in
Dhaka - the capital of the country. As a result, the rural people are far behind from enjoying minimum ICT
services and utilities. However, the establishment of UISCs has opened an opportunity for the rural
people to get the minimum benefit of services of ICTs at the rural level. Theoretically there are about 15 to 18
key services like- government forms downloading, birth and death registration, online admission,
livelihood information, job information, visa processing/visa form printing, email and internet browsing, computer
training and photo/mobile phone services etc are supposed to be provided at every center. The present survey
conducted among 100 users of eight UISCs in four districts of Bangladesh- Naraynganj, Gazipur,
Munshiganj and Manikganj shows that the users can take as many as 11 services from a UISCs. 99% of
the respondents said that by and large they were benefited by the services; but it is further to be noted that a large
number of service seekers reported that they face various problems during seeking services. Illiteracy, inefficiency
or even ignorance of the entrepreneurs, local politics, lack of attention towards the users, loose monitoring by the
programme authority etc are the main barriers to receive the services and achieve full potential of those UISCs.
Again there has been prevailing a prominent dividein regards to services and logistic support between peri urban
and remote rural UISCs.
Keywords:
Right to information (RTI), Union Information and Services Centers (UISCs), Digital divide, Access to
Information (A2I),
International Telecommunication Union (ITU),
Household Income and Expenditure Survey(HIES), Community Community Information Centers (CICs), Union
Parishad (UP) , Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Introduction:
The present century is called the edge of information. Everywhere information is now considered as the
commodity and vehicle of development. The person who has the exact information on issues in his/her possession
and who enjoys the better opportunity of access to information is considered a controlling and dominant person in
the society. Indeed, the possession of information on issues and/or better opportunity of access to information can
inject and infuse empowerment in every body. Therefore in present day the right to information has become an
issue of importance and measured as an advantage and the part of human rights. In recognition to this idea or
thought the Government of Bangladesh has passed the Right to Information Act in 2009. The Government first
under took a programme named Union Information Center in 2007. The goal of this programme was to bring and
make information services available at the grass root level. Now a day this services have been further accelerated
with the help of communication technologies. The rural people are now getting information and services on
various necessary issues more easily from these Union Information and Service Centers (UISCs). These centers
are connected with the Information Super Highway or internet. It is to be noted that Internet was first introduced in
Bangladesh in 1993. In 1996 the Government approved VSAT based internet. Initially the internet facility was
available to dwellers of Dhaka city. At that time the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) did not show interest to
expand the facility all over the country. Then the use of internet was impounded only to send email. A few users

used to utilize internet for chatting and browsing websites. Dial up modem was the only medium to connect the
computer with internet. It is to be told that in 2009 the Local Government Division in partnership with the Access 2
Information (A2I) Programme of the UNDP established information centers at 30 Union Parishads ( the lowest
tire of the local government in Bangladesh) in the country. The government has so far set up 4516 UISCs through
out the country. All of these centers are now in operation and supposed to enjoy internet connectivity mainly
through broadband internet modem. From 2000, the internet facility was made available outside Dhaka. The
internet speed is still very low in rural Bangladesh. In milieu of this the present article tries to pull out a scenario of
the current pattern of use and facilities of the Union Information and Service Centers (UISCs) in
rural Bangladesh. It also deals with understanding the users’ perception on services provided by the entrepreneurs
of those centers.
Information and Communication Technology Situation in Bangladesh:
The
ICT
policy of Bangladesh was formulated in 2002. This policy was revised in 2008 and the revised policy has been
adopted by the Government in 2009. The present ICT policy of Bangladesh puts focuses on:

To expand and diversify the use of ICTs to establish a transparent, responsive and accountable government

To develop skilled human resources

To ensure cost-effective delivery of citizen-services through public-private partnerships

To support the national goal of becoming a middle-income country within ten years and to join the rank of the
developed countries of the world within thirty years
During last few years Bangladesh has been experiencing a boom in ICT sector. The country is
advancing gradually as shown in ICT index of International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
From the following table(s) we understand that Bangladesh is gradually increasing her position
and the use of ICT tools is on increase in the country:

Table: 01[a] Table: 01 [b] Bangladesh’s Position in ICT Use of ICT Tools in Bangladesh
Sectors 2008 2012
Cell phone connection 25% 53% Fixed Telephone Subscriptions 0.92 0.94 Annual Computer Sell 1.80 Lakhs 6
Lakhs Annual Laptop Sale 42,000 5 Lakhs oDesk Job No Place Third
Year Rank
2012 113 2011 115 2010 118 2009 130 2008 124 2007 118

Bangladesh experiences a roar in telecommunication sector in recent years. The country crosses 100 million cell
phone subscribers in mid of the June of 2013.
(
http://www.thefinancialexpressbd.com/index.php?ref=MjBfMDVfMjdfMTNfMV84OV8xNzA3 NDY=
)
From the index it is clear that in regards to use of ICT tools Bangladesh has been raising gradually. However, the
internet penetration in rural areas is still very low. In most of the cases we see that the development is centered to
the capital and big cities. Rural areas are experiencing low speed of internet and inadequate infrastructures.
Household Income and Expenditure Survey, 2010 of Bangladesh shows that there is an inequality between rural
and urban areas in terms of ICTs facilities/elements. The data is presented in the following table: Table: 02 Subject
National (%) Rural (%) Urban (%) Electricity 55.26 42.49 90.10 Mobile Facility 63.74 56.77 82.74
Telephone 2.07 0.70 5.79 Computer 3.01 0.97 8.58 Email 1.39 0.39 4.10 Here we see that nearly
91% of the urban people have electricity, whereas only 43% of the rural people enjoy electricity facilities.
Cell phone is getting popular day by day in Bangladesh. But there is discrimination between city and
rural settings. 56.77% of the rural people have cell phone facility whereas in urban areas the figure is 82.74%.
Tendency of email sending is really low in both urban and rural areas (4.1% and 0.39% respectively)
of the country. We find the difference in using computer as well. Urban computer possession is 8.58%
whereas in rural areas it is less than 1% (0.97% only). (Household Income and Expenditure Survey, Ch. 3, 2010,
BBS). In all consideration there is a huge gap in using ICT and other medium of communication among
the people of Bangladesh and the overall scenario helps us to make the inference that there has
been prevailing a situation of ‘Digital Divide’ phenomenon in the country.
Union Information Service Centers in Bangladesh:
In the backdrop of a ‘Digital Divide’ phenomenon the Government Bangladesh has been initiating several steps to
trim down this gap. The government has thus so far set up 4516 Union Information and Service Centers at the
union (the lowest tire of the local government system) level as a major strategy to boost up the use of ICT among
the rural people. To go back to history it is to be noted that the cell phone company, Grameenphone first launched
the idea of establishing Community Information Centers (CICs) in 2006 in the country. Their pilot project (2006)
started with 16 CICs, has now reached to 500 CICs (every CIC can support at least 4 adjacent villages) running in
460 Upazilas in the country. (http://www.gpcic.org/CicPages/show/About%20us) The government effort began
in 2009 in this regard. The government started operating UISCs in 30 Union Parishads (UP) through a partnership
between Local Government Division and Access to Information (A2I) programme of UNDP. Each UISC (at least
equipped with one desktop computer, one laptop, one internet modem, one printer, one cyber camera etc) is
operated by two young local entrepreneurs - a male and a female under the supervision of a local advisory
committee headed by the UP Chairman. The entrepreneurs are free to install additional facilities to support his/her
business growth, at the same time, ensuring that the social sustainability of the centre is achieved by delivering
government information and services. Some facts on UISCs of A2I programme in Bangladesh can be mentioned
in the following:

4516 UISCs are operational in all over the country

9032 entrepreneurs are trained and self-employed

Top services: Government forms, Examination results, birth and death registration, livelihood information,
computer training, mobile banking, email and internet browsing etc.
3 million services were provided to citizen from UISCs in last 2 years countrywide

36 million birth registration (electronically) from UISCs

1.2 billion earnings for UISCs entrepreneurs in last 2 years

30, 000 local youths got ICT training from UISCs.

More than 9000 leaders and entrepreneurs have been trained through leadership
development.(http://a2i.pmo.gov.bd/content/union-information-and-service-centres-uisc

)
Theoretical Lenses:
Theoretical lenses are essential for a research and each research should be suited to a theory. In recent years several
researches were carried out on community information centers. Most of them lack theoretical ground and
understanding. The present study is carried out following two theories: one is - Uses & Gratification Theory,
another is- Theory of Social Learning. These theories spell out that people use technology or media basically for
information, communication, entertainment and education needs. Uses & Gratification theory suggests that the
individual uses media to obtain certain gratifications (Katz, E: 1959). The present study shows that users try to get
several services from UISCs and they are appreciative with these services and sometimes they are not. The Social
Learning Theory is given by Albert Bandura. This theory provides a perspective or stand point that the social
behavior (any type of behavior that we display socially) is learned primarily by observing and imitating the
actions of others. The social behavior is also influenced by being rewarded and/or punished for
these actions. Albert Bandura said that the psychological changes can be produced through other means
than performance accomplishments. (Bandura: 1977) This study finds that the users of Union Information and
Community Centers knew and learned about the services from their peers and local leaders, their neighbors,
friends, family as well as from various media. The local leaders played a good role in disseminating the
information. Publicities through mikings, posters, leaflets, banners and other media contributed to influence them
and to take services from UISCs.
Objectives:
The main objective of this work is to - 1.

Identify the overall situation of the Union Information and Services Centers(UISCs) in Bangladesh. 2.

To understand the level of perception and to know the level of users’ satisfaction with these services. The other
allied objectives and area of enquiries of the study are-
1.

To know the pattern and efficacy of the services provided by the UISCs. 2.

To understand the cost implications on the part of the users to get the services from UISCs. 3.

To know the awareness building efforts to attract the people for seeking services from the UISCs. 4.

To know about the users’ network in seeking services from the UISCs.
Literature Review:
In spite of their best effort

the researchers could not find and come across enough related researches / works in Bangladesh in this particular
area. Therefore only a few studies on the community information centers were found and consulted for this work.
It is to be noted that the Union Information and Service Centers (UISCs) and Community Information
Centers(CICs) have been emerging as an essential hub of ICT service provider in rural Bangladesh. As of
the programme’s claim, the UISCs have provided around 33 million services to the citizen
during 2010-2012 which is really a significant contribution on the part of the programme. The government
frequently refers this programme as a successful task initiated by them for the overall development of the country.
But the researchers could not find any full volume work on UISCs done by the government nor by any other
individual/agencies. Only a few small studies and reports were found on local telecenters and community
information centers run by Grameen Phone, the biggest cell phone company of Bangladesh. A few studies were
found on the Community Information Centers (CICs) run by the private or Non-Government Organizations
(NGOs) in Bangladesh. The researchers could not find any study on UISCs as such. Islam and Hoq (2010) carried
out a study entitled – ‘Community Internet Access in Rural Areas: A study on Community Information Centers in
Bangladesh’. This article aims at understanding the Internet access points at community level in Bangladesh and
identifies their service pattern and the existing state of affairs of the services. The researchers tried to emphasize on
the Community Information Centers of Grammenphone, the largest telecom operator in Bangladesh. This venture
is considered as the part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. This work describes how these
centers are playing a role for providing specific Internet- based information services to the rural communities. It
also highlights the different problems of CICs and puts an attempt to suggest some measures and future directions
for further development of Internet access points and CICs in Bangladesh. This study was indeed as an evaluative
research. Both survey and document analysis was used to gather data for the study. The study concludes that
Bangladesh has an obvious need to connect its rural population. CIC acts as a one stop centre for meeting diverse
information need in the fields of agriculture, education, health, governance, human rights, career building,
environment and social services. Another study was carried out by Islam and Islam (2008) named- ‘Community
Information Centers: A Step to Bring Connectivity of the Rural Communities in Bangladesh.’ This study deals
with understanding on - how the community information centers create community awareness. The study was
carried out among 500 users of Grameenphone run Community Information Centers in Bangladesh. The
objectives of the study were to know the role of CICs on creating internet awareness among the users and measure
the benefit of CICs. It also explores how the CIC can be strap up to promote development of rural communities in
the country. Questionnaire, documentary sources and observations were the major methods used for this study.
The study made a simple conclusion that CICs can make the life of community people easier. This was mainly an
exploratory study in nature. They did not deal as much as with the issue how much
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