Service Delivery System of Union Digital Centre (UDC): An Evaluation of Financial Crisis of UDC at Trishal Union Parishad, Trishal, Mymensingh

1.      Introduction

Local government is an administrative body as well as the subsystem of the central government which main purpose is to provide services locally within a certain territory. Union Parishad is the lowest tier of rural local government. With a view to achieving the vision of 2021 (Digital Bangladesh), the government of Bangladesh took the initiative to establish Union Digital Center (UDC) at each Union Parishad with the help of E-governance (Electronic Governance) for providing one stop services. Establishing UDCs at each UP has created reachable accessibilities for public service delivery for the extensive percentage of country’s population. Due to the incidence of effective service delivery system, now a citizen has to go neither long distance nor depend on market intermediaries to get public information and services to which they are entitled. On the whole, the UDCs are serving dramatically by delivering services to citizen’s doorsteps and performing as a milestone towards achieving the goals of ‘Digital Bangladesh’. The UDCs have empowered rural people to access needed information and essential services in rapid, cost effective and simple ways. Merely, these are playing significant roles in bridging the digital divide and giving the benefits of ICTs at the hand of rural communities. As the final basis of information and service delivery, the scenario of UDCs to perform as the enabling device for ensuring sustainable development would be unparalleled (Rahman, 2016) . But, due to the dearth of financial independence and financial support, UDCs cannot perform sustainably.  Thus by identifying the factors affecting its sustainability for financial support and proper direction are indispensable for the long term sustainability and active functioning of UDCs. This is what this research endeavors to do.

 

2.      Background of the study

Local government is defined as “the totality of processes which contribute to the development of a specific area as well as the norms necessary for mediating a harmonious amalgamation of actions (Pierre-Jean, 1994). There are two broad types of local government, such as rural local government (which contain Union parishad, Upazila parishad and Zila parishad) and urban local government (which contain Municipality and City Corporation). Among these Union Parishad is a critical aspect of local level development. Union Parishad, the lowest formal tire of local government system came into formal shape in the sub-continent during the last part of British days (1858-194 7). The existence of one kind of informal rural body however, was seen even in the era of Vedic (1500-1000 B.C), which looked after the safety, security and other social affairs including games sports etc. at rural areas (Rahman Moksuder, 2000). Similarly, it is the lowest tier local government institution which delivers services to citizens at their entrance. It plays a vital role to ensure good governance, development planning, implementation, transparency, and accountability for rural areas in Bangladesh. (Mohammad I. T., 2017). To foster these specific tasks Union Digital Centre (UDC) must be an innovative ingenuity of local government authority in Bangladesh.

Union Digital Center (UDC) is jointly represent an important nexus for service delivery decentralization, local government strengthening and community development. Essentially, UDC has stimulated IT (information technology) as well as internet based services which ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery system under grassroots level (Union parishad level). It provides online based birth and death certificate, correction of NID, birth registration, e-passport check, composing, job applying, photocopy, and internet browsing services etc. Currently, UDC has gain much concerned towards the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery at local government bodies (Union Parishads). Financial support is a great challenge of Union Digital Centre (UDC). Government has covered only 25% cost of it, and remaining 75% carried of its own business. Nevertheless, no organization can be run well, if the budget as well as financial support engaged properly and wholeheartedly. Union Digital center (UDC) is not an alternative way of making local government happens; it has becoming the most demanding and effective standard for achieving good-governance.

 3.      Objectives of the Study

The broad objective of this study is to assess how Union Digital Center (UDC) could manage fund to provide prompt service to the local citizen at grassroots level in Bangladesh.

The specific objectives are

a)      to analyze the exiting service delivery system of Union Digital Center (UDC).

b)      to identify the factors those influence the effective service delivery of Union Digital Center (UDC).

c)      to evaluate how far Union Digital Center (UDC) is beneficial if properly exercised at local level (Union Parishad).

d)     to make some suggestions for the betterment of the process of an effective service delivery of Union Digital Center (UDC).

4.      Statement of the problem

Union Digital Center (UDC) is an innovative idea of local government. As a latest initiative, many difficulties arise in case of improving service delivery system in case of its (UDC) financial sustainability. As difficulties may arise from different phenomena while delivering service, stakeholders’ engagement can settle down many chaos’s and using innovative equipment (computer, internet, camera, modem, photocopy machine etc.). Principally, financial crisis is a major challenge of UDC to explore its services towards the service seekers at Union Parishad level. To solve the problem about how UDC in Union level should accelerate and manage performance and fund, a systematic attempt to involve UDC has made regarding this issue. In this perspective, the applicable research topic is “Service Delivery System of Union Digital Centre (UDC): An evaluation of financial crisis of UDC at Trishal Union Parishad”.

5.      Literature Review

Through strengthening and using e-governance and connectivity components, Bangladesh has commenced various ICT initiatives for improving and extending countrywide public service delivery. These initiatives aimed at reforming government service delivery processes through involving entrepreneurs as well as private sectors under the innovative idea of Union Digital Center (Hoque Safiul Md. Shah, Union Digital Center (Udc) And Reduction Of Digital Gap: An Analysis On Users’ Perception, 2016). 

Union Digital Centers (UDCs) in Bangladesh are one-stop service delivery outlets, providing information and delivery of different public and private services. Established under the direct jurisdiction of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), with technical assistance from the United Nations Developed Programme (UNDP) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), its operation is being overseen by the Access to Information (A2I) program. UDCs are aiding rural citizens to deal with the circuitous bureaucratic process of service delivery (Bakshi Karim Rejaul, 2016).

In Bangladesh, there are numbers of studies is conducted on Union Digital Centers as one-stop service delivery outlets. Some of these Relevant Literatures are conversing here.

Mahmood elucidates the necessity of UDC in his work. He articulated that, In order to supply information to the relegated and rural disadvantaged and to decrease the digital divide between urban and rural areas, a number of information and knowledge centers popularly known as Union Digital Center (UDC) have already been established in the rural areas of many developing countries. The first UDC for this function was established in the mid-1980s in Sweden to offer services, training and jobs to the local community through computers and modern telecommunications equipment (Mahmood, 2005.).

Norizan, Zaharah and Rosseni demonstrate about ICT raining. They specify, training in ICT related skills, development strategies, staff roles, production of content, marketing, evaluation, human resource management are important components in ensuring the sustainability of the UDC (D. Rosseni, 2010).

Zahurin (2009) illustrates about social sustainability. He argued that, for ensuring the sustainability of UDC, Social sustainability of the project after period of time needs to be addressed. There are a number of factors such as quality of services and delivery, appropriate staffing, and effective promotions of UDC which are crucial in achieving social sustainability of UDC (Zahurin, 2009 ).

Colle and Roman, 2001 elucidate that, sustaining service delivery relates to the continuation of flows of information that communities find useful and useable. But it also relates to sustaining the overall services of UDC in terms of adapting to evolving community needs, proactively seeking new sources of useful information and alerting the community to the value of information (R., 2001).

Additionally Sarkar (2013)  assumed that,  as a one-stop delivery points, the UDC is placed with the potentials to eradicate all these problems since it is located in UP, a nearer place to them. It has the potential to reduce inaccessibility, cost, time and distance, remove problems of intermediaries, unresponsiveness, unaccountability and lack of transparency in the delivery provision of information or services (Sarker, 2013).

Moreover, Siddiquee and Faroqi (2013) contended that, in case of UDCs, to impart all information and services, however, there must be an effective back-end support to supply them with appropriate contents (Hanna, 2010; Bhatnagar, 2004) which is yet to be developed for UDCs. Along with this, the capability of it to connect the rural citizenry can be questioned for a number of other reasons like limitations in infrastructure, human resource and support from Local Administration and the UP. It is also challenging to involve disadvantaged people like women, poor, and illiterate, given the difficulty to make them aware, for leveraging the benefits (Siddiquee, 2013).

While these studies concentrated on the overall financial sustainability to reach a break-even point there are clearly lack of studies to provide any model to explain as what factors contribute to the sustained level of income of entrepreneurs of UDC. There is an urgent need to develop a model and test on financial viability as most externally funded UDC face challenges with the exit of donors (Kumar, 2005). Moreover, in Bangladesh no studies have previously focused any forms of sustainability concerns of the UDC. Hence, this study focuses on the financial viability of the UDC from identifying the factors evolved from the interplay of partners in the model that have influence on the inconsistency of entrepreneur’s income. Despite there are other forms of sustainability, this research paper only deals with the financial crisis of UDC. Appropriately ascertaining the factors, behind it will have implications for preventing drop-outs, and thus ensuring sustainability of the UDC.

 6. Methodology

This research will be exploratory, and social survey method will be followed to collect information. In survey method the data will be collected from the field directly. In this study, mixed approaches will be used that incorporates both qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative approach seeks to listen to informers and build a picture on their ideas whereas quantitative approaches measure the current scenario of Union Parishad (UP) and Union Digital Center (UDC).  Data collection is one of the important requirements while to conduct any research. In this paper data will be collected from both primary and secondary sources. For the collection of primary data semi-structured questionnaires will be used where both open and close ended questions will be included. Considering the aim of this research, secondary data will be collected from published books, e-books, journals, articles, newspaper and reports of different organization and Union Digital Center (UDC) which are related to the study. The study area will cover one Union Parishad which is Trishal Union Parishad at Trishal Upazila, Mymensingh. The population for this study is the local people of Trishal Union Parishad under Trishal Upazila, Mymensingh.  The simple random sampling method will be followed and the size of sample is 200.  Collected data will be organized characteristically, and then statistical method (percentage analysis) will be applied on them. Quantitative data will be presented in the tables and the responses will be shown in percentage. The data of the table will be discussed then. Qualitative data will also be analyzed and discussed in this research. Moreover the collected information and data will be processed also through Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS).

7.      Ethical consideration

This study will be ethical. It will not hamper any individuals, any institutions, any organizations as well as social environment. It will be helpful to ensure effective service delivery of Union Digital Center (UDC) at grassroots level. Moreover, in this study, personal information, interviews and opinions of the participants will be hidden for ensuring participants sanctuary and protection. This study can also be able to identify the financial crisis of Union Digital Center (UDC).

8. Time Frame

Activities		Review of relevant  Literature	Collection and preparation of relevant data	Preliminary analysis of data	Preparation of interim report	Organizing and writing the final research report	Total Project Time
2019	Aug
	Sep
	Oct
	Nov
	Dec
2020	Jan
	Feb
	Mar
	Apr
	May
Total Time							10 Months