The government on Wednesday handed over licences to six Bangladeshi telecommunications and ICT companies for issuing digital signatures.
The Bangla Phone Limited, Computer Services Limited, Data Age Limited, Dohatec New Media, Flora Telecom Limited, and Mango Teleservices Limited will from now on be able to issue electronic signatures for the public, the government and non-government companies.
The science and ICT minister, Yeafesh Osman, handed over the licences to the owners of the companies in a programme in the office of the Controller of Certifying Authorities at the Bangladesh Computer Council building at Agargaon in Dhaka.
Awarding the licences, the minister said the government had taken several steps to achieve the vision of a digital Bangladesh and introduction of electronic signature was one step further towards the goal.
The government introduced digital signature to reach goals of paperless government correspondence, e-governance, e-procurement, e-commerce, electronic document signing, internet banking using digital signature, device and server signing.
The Controller of Certifying Authorities sought application for licences on July 19, 2010. Twelve companies submitted applications for the licence and six were awarded licence after scrutiny, officials said.
