ICT Division to refund Tk 40 crore cancelling events

Staff Reporter :
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division will refund Tk 40 crore to the Finance Ministry after cancelling 17 programs of the the division in the financial year 2022-23 due to the global crisis and the government’s austerity policy.
State Minister of ICT Division Junaid Ahmed Palak made the announcement at a press conference in an online platform on Thursday.
State Minister said that the ICT Division organizes and participates in various domestic and international programs and events to create Smart Bangladesh. But this year, in the context of the global situation, some changes have been made as a special strategy of state management in organizing regular campaigns, events along with cost reduction in various activities.
“At least Tk 40 crore will be returned to the Finance Minisrty as a result of canceling 17 programs as part of the Prime Minister’s cost-saving initiative. The Finance Ministry allocated Tk 75 crore for these events,” he added.
Referring specifically to the ICPC World Finals, the State Minister said that Bangladesh is responsible to the world as per the earlier decision of organizing the ICPC in 2017. That is why the program is organized. Had it not been organized, it would have been possible to return about Tk 30 crore more.
“Due to the effort to save money, the celebration of ‘Digital Bangladesh Day ‘ on December 12 will be held in a limited scale,” State Minister said.
Besides, the 17 programs including Digital World, Digital Innovation Summit, BPO Summit, Blockchain Olympiad, High School Programming Competition, Bangladesh-India Startup Exchange, Japan IT Week, Channel i Digital Bangladesh Media Awards, International Expo (Japan, India, UK, America, Europe on ICT), Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures of Asia (CICA) on Bangladesh and Tech Carnival have been cancelled as well as all other arrangements for which tenders were called which have also been cancelled.