One Step Ahead, Two Step Back: If you visit the official website of the Bangladesh Government, you will see a few apps listed as
“necessary apps” including Bangladesh Directory (for Android and iOS), Bangladesh Tourist Spot, Uttoradhikar, and Ogrojatra (Election Manifesto). But how many of these apps fulfill their true purposes is a real question.
If you browse through the Bangladesh Directory app, you will notice different sections that hold supposed contact information of important personnels. After using the app for only a little while,
you will be able to see what is wrong with it. Many of the information are incorrect while some are quite vague.
For example, if you scroll through the BGB section, you will see a person named Rob pops up who supposedly has a contact number that is surprisingly presumptuous. His phone number is: 1234567. Most of these apps were developed with technical help from the ICT division, a2i, Cabinet Division, or the UNDP. Another Government app developed by a2i, named EkPay is claimed to serve the purpose of digital payments, like bill payments through cards, or bank transactions. It has a download number of 10K+ with an average rating of 2.8 stars. The problem with the app is that the billing information doesn’t get updated even once you pay the bill. A similar problem was faced by a reviewer, who wrote, “Poor performance. DESCO meter was not recharged but amount was deducted from account.”
Do any of these apps work?
The general idea behind a successful app is the proper implementation of its purpose. From this perspective, the most successful Government app is undoubtedly the Surokkha app. The app has a 5M+ number of downloads with a 4.3 star rating. Romana Khan, a housewife from Dhaka, said, “The Surokkha app is very easy to use. The app produced my data and I could successfully register for the vaccine.”
Although questions can be raised about how the app was failing multiple times whenever it got overflowed with traffic. Some people even complained that they noticed glitches in the app. One Step Ahead, Two Step Back
How many unsuccessful apps are still there?
Did you know that BD Sugar and Food Industries is an app? It was developed in 2015, and has not received an update since 2016. If you open the app, you will notice a homepage that is supposed to lead you to information on this field. But if you click on the avatars, it doesn’t work anymore.
The Hospital Finder app is an application to find nearby hospitals around the user. If you open the app, a Google map of the streets pops up. But due to its incorrect location detector, it won’t be able to produce
results of nearby hospitals, failing in its only purpose. The NBR Tax Calculator is another app that calculates total amount of taxes based on user input. Unfortunately, the app is stuck in the year 2016-17, and cannot be used to calculate the tax anymore. It could prove useful if only it was updated with time.
There were a total of 600 apps developed in the time period between 2013 to 2015, which took an estimated budget of 18.35 crores. All of these apps fall under these two projects. Only 44 of them are still available online.
Around 300 of the 600 apps created by two projects were designed to allow people to directly access the services of specific government offices or agencies. Although most of them have since become obsolete, some apps have been developed on the agencies’ own initiative.