Bhutan

Bringing Services to the people

Tugpula plans to build a permanent mud rammed house in his remote village. But his dream of a roof over his head has not materialized because he has been unable to get the necessary clearance from the forest authorities to obtain timber. But this is all set to change with the UNDP supported e-governance project.

Tugpula is from the semi nomadic ethnic community of Monpas in Jangbi Village, Langthel Gewog and will have to walk almost two hours to the gewog center and then drive for two hours to the dzongkhag in an attempt to navigate the nearly month-long bureaucratic process of forestry application approval.

However, this is all set to change. The project on localization of e-governance being implemented in Langthel and Drakteng Gewogs in Trongsa Dzongkhag provides a one stop shop for processing permits for the extraction of timber, firewood, flagpoles, fencing and bamboo. This means that Tugpula will no longer have to endure the grueling process but will have his application verified and approved online within a few days.

The UNDP-project benefits about 3000 to 5000 local people from the two gewogs (blocks) and over 20,000 public servants, with the time for processing the permits and clearances reduced from a month to about a week. With the e-platform in place, the government will be able to set up online e-services much quicker improving public services for citizens, and achieve one of the major goals of the Royal Government in providing 75 percent of all public services online by 2013.

After the implementation of the project, public access to information has increased, resulting in greater transparency, efficiency and accountability in public service delivery at the local level.

Both the Drakteng and Langthel Gups (head of gewog) said that the project will greatly improve the lives of the people by making it easier to process applications.