Industry Information
e-Sri Lanka Initiative
The Government, private sector and other stakeholders in the nation's development share a belief that information and communications technology (ICT) is a foundation medium for the equitable distribution of opportunity and knowledge within society and communities and a key determinant of competitive advantage of Sri Lanka.
The belief has resulted in a shared vision for an e-Sri Lanka - a vision which will take the dividends of ICT to every village, citizen, business and also transform the way Government works. ICT will be used to develop Sri Lanka's economy, alleviate poverty and improve the quality of life and opportunities for all Sri Lankans.
The total value of e-Sri Lanka's first phase amounts to US$83m backed by the World Bank. The funding is allocated across all program areas but focuses in this first phase on rural connectivity and re-engineering government. Priority projects for re-engineering Government include e-Motoring, e-Pensions, e-HRM and e-Foreign Employment.
e-Sri Lanka Strategy
In July 2003 the Government of Sri Lanka created the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Agency to not only spearheads the implementation of the e-Sri Lanka initiative but to be the apex body of all ICT development in the country. This agency freed from the shackles of a typical government agency through an Act of Parliament paved the way for a governing body to be flexible, pro-active and transparent in the most demanding of business arenas.
The ICT Agency's core mandate was to create a national ICT Plan that is both visionary in the long term and realistic in its implementation. The second function of this program area is to encourage the mainstreaming of ICT into decision matrices of the leadership of Sri Lanka - both public and private sectors.
The Agency's program areas are given below:
Pilot Project Program
The pilot project program plays a key role with regard to the success of the e-Sri Lanka vision. Before embarking on a number of larger projects that would have had an impact on the citizens of the country it was considered vital that potential successes of keys areas in the ICT Roadmap are tested. The pilot project program aimed to do this by testing critical hypotheses in a number of areas. The result from each pilot provides invaluable input into the main projects' specifications ensuring greater efficiency during implementation. The pilot projects include:
- Vishva Gnana Kendra (VGK)
- Sinhala fonts
- Government Printer Online
- National Operations Room
- Empowering the Workplace
- Distance e-learning
- Govi Gnana System
- E-Money Order
- SME portal
- Internally Displaced Persons
- Legal Draftsmen
- e-Cabinet
- e-Parliament
- e-Office of the President