Digital Flagship Programme delayed by the pandemic

Global travel restrictions and the two nationwide lockdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed the completion of the projects under the Digital Drukyul Flagship programme. There are eight projects under the programme. And the deadline for some of these projects is extended while some projects are yet to start.

A group of developers and analysts from Thimphu TechPark Limited (TTPL) are developing the Bhutan Integrated Tax System (BITS) and the electronic patient information system (e-PIS). BITS is one of the projects under the Digital Drukyul Flagship programme to implement an enhanced integrated tax system to improve the quality of data on taxes. The electronic patient information system is a project that will maintain the digital health records of every Bhutanese so that people need not carry their health books every time they visit a hospital.

The projects were given to TechPark to develop the capacity of the local developers.

“Why we need to develop local capacity is that in the past similar projects have been done by the private sectors. The private sectors have done it in partnership with the companies from outside, especially the big projects because there is no local capacity to undertake such big projects. What has happened is that after the project is delivered, local capacity development has not really taken place. It is hard for the local capacity development to take place,” said Tshering Cigyel Dorji, the CEO of the TTPL.

“TTPL is working in partnership with a company from Armenia. Currently, we have around 16 people assigned for the project including developers, business analysts, and other system architects. The project has been assigned to TTPL to build local capacity and this is what we are focusing on right now. And I am happy to say that our developers are learning new systems and technology and have been able to pick up quite a bit and we have progressed quite far into the project,” said Namgay Phuntsho, the Director of IT Services at the TTPL.

“The project will most probably start from April. Currently, we have six developers who are undergoing training so that they can implement the system when the project kick starts,” said Kinley Tshering, the e-PIS Project Manager at the TTPL.

Besides developing and delivering the system to the government, these aspiring technologists will also be able to maintain the systems in the long run.

“One of the major difficulties in such big systems is that after the system is delivered when we don’t have the local capacity to maintain the systems ourselves then getting support from the people who have delivered the system is very difficult. And the support is not forthcoming, and sometimes the system gets discarded,” said the CEO.

However, the completion of these two projects is delayed amid the pandemic. The deadline for BITS is now revised to December this year. It was initially scheduled to be complete by June this year.

And the e-PIS is yet to be developed. It got delayed with the health ministry engaged in managing the COVID situation in the country.

“BITS is in full swing. The contract for the project was signed in June last year. Our team as well as people from the international partner are working on the project. However, the COVID-19 situation has impacted the project mainly because what we are looking at is bringing the experts from outside to work with our Bhutanese youth here. Because of the pandemic bringing people from outside has been very difficult. So because of that, there is going to be a little delay in the project milestone as compared to what was envisaged initially,” the CEO said.

Similarly, the completion of the remaining six projects under the ICT Flagship programme remains delayed amid the pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has really impacted our projects. Firstly, because of the closure of international borders and then the restriction on the movement of goods, the equipment we are planning to purchase from other countries took time. Then international consultants and trainers could not come in to develop and train the ICT professionals. We had to postpone these activities and cancel some and look for alternatives. And the two national lockdowns also impacted our progress as we lost roughly about one and a half months time,” said Sonam Penjor, the Head of Application Management Division with the Department of IT and Telecom.

Digital Drukyul is one of the government’s flagship programmes in the 12th Five Year Plan. Through the programme, the government intends to harness the potential of ICT to transform Bhutan into a smart and inclusive society. The government allocated a budget of around Nu 3bn for the flagship programme.

Phub Gyem

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