By A Staff Reporter

Lalitpur, Dec. 19: Minister for Communication and Information Technology Gokul Prasad Baskota Wednesday said that the government was focusing on digitization of the economy in order to achieve the national goal of ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali’.
Addressing a seminar organised by the ministry on ‘Digital Nepal Framework’, Minister Baskota said that through the framework the government had prepared a roadmap of action plans to increase productivity in various economic sectors through digitization.
With the vision of ‘digital Nepal for good governance, development and prosperity’, the government had recently approved the Digital Nepal Framework 2019 to be implemented in five years.
Stating that new information technology was an important source for reducing poverty, Minister Baskota said that implementation of the framework would help narrow down the existing digital divide in the country.
“Continuation of the digital divide will push the people to another vicious circle of poverty which the government will not allow,” he said.
He said that lack of infrastructure was the major challenges to the implementation of the framework.
“The country lacks around 50 per cent infrastructure for the implementation of the framework, he said, adding that cooperation with private sector, development partners and sharing of infrastructure could address it,” he said.
He said that the government needed to integrate the investments to avoid the duplication of investments from various government agencies.
Minister Baskota also urged the donor agencies and diplomatic missions to support in technology, finance and knowledge in materialising the goal of ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali’.
He said that implementation of initiatives included in the framework would be possible only if it was implemented with national commitment in a coordinated way.
Vice President of National Planning Commission Prof. Dr. Pushpa Raj Kandel said that the digitization of the economy was essential to drive the economy towards the path of economic development.
He said that expenditure in technology was the capital expenditure which would give a return to the economy. He said that technology was only a sector which could progress despite of landlocked situation and other restrictions from neighbours.
In the Digital Nepal Framework, the government has identified different eights sectors and 80 initiatives for the transformation of broader dimension of the economy to increase production and productivity through the uses of digital technology.
The eight identified sectors by the framework for the use of digital technology are digital foundation, agriculture, health, education, energy, tourism, finance and urban infrastructure.