The Bangladesh State Minister for ICT is among the many who have expressed their unhappiness about the release of stale data based on a large-sample representative survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, which shows impressive gains in mobile use and less than impressive Internet use.
“All these data show that Bangladesh has developed as a country in the ICT and telecommunication sector,” said State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak.
He, however, was not satisfied with the findings on internet connections at households.
“Our calculation showed that internet penetration is now more than 34 percent, and it will be 100 percent by 2021.”
Last year, 44 lakh smartphones were sold, and the number would double this year, he said.
“Sometimes, the BBS findings put us in an embarrassing situation, and that on internet users is one such finding.
“This sort of finding stands in the way of showing the real picture of digitisation. It pushes us down the bottom of different international indices,” said Palak.
According to the BBS, only 17.12 lakh of the 3.58 crore households in the country are connected with internet. Of those, 11.8 percent in urban areas and 2.5 percent in rural areas have data connectivity.
It was when analysis of the US Census could barely be completed by the time the next census was due (10 years) that mechanization that concluded with the emergence of IBM as a giant in the field of computing began. It appears that the National Statistical Organizations in all developing countries, not limited to Bangladesh, have to rethink their work processes in a similar manner.
1 Comment
Mohammad Kawsar Uddin
Interesting!! survey conducted in 2013 and published last week by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.