Editorial»
Dream on
AUG 07 -
The long drawn-out Machine Readable Passport affair is now for the Supreme Court’s to decide. While the apex court mulls the issue, controversy is fast brewing over electronic cards of a different sort. A process initiated by the government for implementing the electronic driving licence and embossed number plate system is now under the scanner of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse and Authority (CIAA). The anti-graft body, suspecting irregularities in the bidding, has seized all the bidding-related documents from the Ministry of Labour and Transport Management’s (MoLTM) special committee tasked with handling the whole process.
Special committee members rubbish CIAA investigations. Under the proposed plan, the international company
chosen to deliver the electronic documents will invests its
own money. The total estimated cost of Rs 2.5 billion will
then be reimbursed by the government. As no money
changes hands until the delivery date, the members question, how can they be accused of involvement in corruption of any kind? But CIAA suspects irregularities in the pre-bidding
and bidding processes. And couldn’t the promised kickbacks be delivered at a later date? To muddy the waters further special committee chief Balchi Dhar Ghimire has resigned at the start of the investigations.
Introduction of digital recordkeeping was expected to help curb fake licence issuance, track down stolen vehicles and aid the police in controlling crimes. But as the current controversy roils on, the future of the new system hangs in the balance. It does not help that CIAA has refused to put a date to the end of its investigations, making many fear that the electronic licence system could go the MRP way—drag on and on with the end nowhere in sight. The government’s dubious record in other projects of similar nature is another cause for concern. At the start of the year the government had endorsed a plan to issue Smart Cards (National Identity Cards) and new electoral roll with digitised signatures of its bearers. But little progress has been made on the ambitious plan. Now it has initiated (and started an indefinite investigation into) a process to issue electronic driving licences and embossed number plates.
The government is clearly not short of ambitious plans to digitise its database and cut down on the mountain of paperwork. But even during the best of times Nepali bureaucracy has had a woeful record in implementing even its well
devised plans. And these are far from the ideal time to push through ambitious projects. At present, the political will to implement them is simply not there. Far form getting them dreaming of easy lives with an array of smart cards lined up in their pockets, the bait of convenient electronic cards—the MRP, the National Identity Cards, electronic driving licences—instead seems to be reminding them to keep their digital dreams in check.
Posted on: 2010-08-08 07:36
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