Bhutan under the leadership of visionary kings, has been decentralizing the power to the people since 1981 with its culmination of a Constitutional Democracy in 2008. Now people are empowered to make their own decisions regarding the issues that affect their lives which call for information so that they are able to take informed decisions. The landscape of Bhutan in it self is an impediment to information sharing and here comes the role of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) which, except for few its physical infrastructure, is not at the mercy of the landscape. The role of the ICT as a tool for enhancing decentralization and good governance has been clearly enshrined in the good governance plus documents by catering to the information needs of the people.
The Department of Information and Communication Technology has done a commendable job in creating the web templates for 20 Dzongkhags and launching them. The Dzongkhag web, without doubt, shall serve as source of information for the decision makers both at the Central and Local levels. The initiative also shorten the gap of Digital-Divided firstly at the international level between the countries and secondly between the central and local levels within the country. Another initiative of DIT was the establishment of Local Area Network (LAN) system, which greatly enabled information sharing with sector at the Dzongkhag level. With the provision of internet, sending data and reports from the Dzongkhag to the central agencies and vice versa has not only become easy but also time curbing.
Therefore, with launching of the Dzongkhag Websites, I here by assure that the website would create a conducive working system through information sharing required by the policy makers both at the central and at the grass root levels. With the easy access to information through the website the public at large are likely to benefit substantially and thereby making process of our present working system transparent the delivery of services faster. I wish all the website users’ happy moments in accessing and to radically benefit in fulfilling their information requirement
Goling Tshering
Dzongdag
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