Postal offices will be developed as Rural Information Centers

June 21, 2007 | By | Reply More

Kathmandu city after Sunset KATHMANDU, June 20: Nepal Government spokesperson and Minister for Information and Communications Krishna Bahadur Mahara has lauded the role of the postal service in the field of communication and said that the government was planning to develop the post offices in the rural areas as information centers at the grass roots level.
Inaugurating a two-day seminar organised by the Department of Postal Service in Kathmandu the other day, Minister Mahara, who is also the spokesperson of the government, said that the postal service backed by information technology would be strengthened in the rural areas so that people would get better services and have easy access to information. This is the age of information, and the new revolution in the filed of information and communication technology has brought about significant changes on various fronts.

The post offices will be developed as rural information centers and 100 of them will be immediately run as Tele-centres and will be gradually extended, he said.
Nepal is also striving hard to invest more on information and communication technology and reap benefits from it. The government has taken some initiatives for the development of information technology. The private sector has also come up with more innovative ideas in the field. These initiatives have shown better prospects and potential in developing IT.
But there is another side to the story, which does not portray a very positive scenario. Despite the revolution in information technology, it has so far been concentrated in the urban areas. IT has not been able to expand to the rural areas. Thus, the postal service has an important role to play in our country.
Nepal is a rural country where more than 80 per cent of the people still live in the rural areas. Communication facilities are not adequately available in the rural areas. People in the villages depend heavily on the postal service for communication. Unfortunately, the postal service is not as fast and effective as it should have been.
Thus, the postal services must be revamped and reformed in order to provide better, quicker and more effective services to the people. Against this background the remarks of Minister Mahara are quite significant, as the government wants to make the postal service more effective with IT backing. The government has already announced to set up rural information centres in all the villages through which the people will have better and more effective access to information. This is a praiseworthy initiative, which needs to be implemented as early as possible.
The new concept to combine rural postal service and information technology would not only make the postal service better but also enable the people in the rural areas to have easy and affordable access to newer developments and advancements in communication technology.

Source: http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=21370

Category: ICT for Development

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  1. Tajul Islam says:

    I think Nepal Government is taking good steps by developing Rural Information Centres. This effort will ensure the information flow in rural areas. It can be a good example for Other South Asian Countries also.

  2. AJUH JOSHUA FON says:

    ICT APPLICATION IN RURAL POVERTY REDUCTION WILL BE ENHANCED IF MOST GOVERNMENTS EMBARCK MORE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ICT INFRASTRUCTURES IN THE RURAL AREAS THAN EXTENDING POST OFFICES SERVICES.

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