The SME Foundation yesterday launched its paperless office in an effort to cut costs, increase productivity and provide better services to stakeholders.
Md Abdul Karim, principal secretary to the prime minister, announced the launch of the new office from a ceremony at Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka.
Aftab ul Islam, president of SME Foundation, chaired the event, which was also addressed by Syed Rezwanul Kabir, managing director.
Speaking as the chief guest, the PM’s principal secretary said the government and non-governmental organisations should cooperate in making the government’s vision for a Digital Bangladesh a reality.
“Using the ICT power and capacities, we have to take all services to people’s doorsteps,” he said.
Karim said the government is taking steps to promote e-commerce, e-banking and e-learning. “The private sector has to be involved.”
He thanked the foundation for playing a pioneering role in automating its office in compliance with the government’s digitisation efforts.
“We could get rid of corruption, irregularities and lack of transparency if all offices are automated,” Karim said.
He said digitisation of land records and registration systems could curb corruption and save people from hassles in the hands of rogue officials.
Aftab ul Islam termed the digitisation of his office as a milestone achieved.
The ICT wing of the foundation has developed necessary software for its internal use.
“We hope productivity of the office will go up and the internal office operations will be faster, reliable and less expensive, lessening the use of paper,” he said.
The SME Foundation stakeholders will also be benefited if it grows efficiently and digitally, he added.
In his presentation, Md Mujibur Rahman, deputy general manager of SME Foundation, said the paperless office style would create an environment that makes paper redundant for routine tasks such as record-keeping, noting, filing and mailing.
