In order to fuel the ruling party’s election manifesto of creating a “Digital Bangladesh”, several high scale projects for developing the Information & Technology sector of the country has been initiated. Alongside, Bangladesh High-Tech Park Authority Act 2010 was enacted, the preamble of which is very critical about how such Tech parks will be constituted, governed and operated.
Recently, the Parliament has brought further changes to this Act under Bangladesh High-Tech Park Authority (Amendment) Act 2014 (Hereinafter referred to as the 2014 Act), in order to accommodate more issues that became live as the projects started.
Firstly, the 2014 Act has widen the purview of the term ‘park’ so as to include Bio-tech park, Renewable Energy park, Green Technology Park and Hardware park. The term ‘High-Tech Industry’ will now cover bio-technology, renewable technology, green technology, hardware information and software technology.
Secondly, the 2014 Act has clarified how the Board of Governors and Executive Committee will be constituted. In respect of the Board, Section 7 of the 2010 Act, after the amendment, will include the deputy-minister of the Information & Communication ministry, secretaries of the ministries like finance, Commerce, Industries, Law Justice & Parliamentary affairs. As far as Section 8 for Executive Committee is concerned, the secretaries from ministries like Information & Communication and Post & Telecommunication will find their places in the committee. Besides, the President of FBCCI will now sit in the committee himself instead of any of his nominated representative. The same will now apply for the President of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services.
Further, there were other amendments, which include change of terms and phrases, and minor alterations of punctuation.
These amendments have brought more clarity in the regulation and administration of the high tech parks. Most importantly, the widening of the scope of the terminologies have indeed accommodated more industries from the IT sector within the category of ‘High Tech Parks’ and consequently receive more benefits and advantages, which are made available by the government for industries falling under these categories. Besides, by bringing in more high ranked government officials in the governance Board, undue political influence which prevailed under the previous format of the board has been reduced to a greater extent and now, hopefully, the whole operation of the high tech parks can be kept in more check and balance.