Every year the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) observes the World Telecommunications and Information Society Day (WTISD) on 17th May. The purpose of WTISD is to help raise awareness of the possibilities that the use of the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICT) can bring societies and economies, as well as of ways to bridge the digital divide. WTISD theme for the year 2016 is “ICT Entrepreneurship for Social Impact”.
As part of the celebration, the ministry started an initiative to recognize ICT champion every year during the WTISD celebration and it was also decided to award prizes for 3rd website competition winners on the same day this year. However due to poor turnout of nominations, the ICT Champion award was postponed to 22nd June, 2016. The call for nominations will close on 3rd June 2016.

3rd website competition was conducted by the Department of IT and Telecom which was followed after the declaration of results of the second website competition. This competition was different from the first two evaluations, it was conducted over a period of 9 months where all the websites were evaluated thrice in 3 rounds. The actual evaluations took place from 8th June 2015 to 19th February 2016. A total of 126 websites were registered in the first round of evaluation but 4 were eliminated from the list due to its inconsistent uptime and duplicacy. Fourteen private firms voluntarily registered their websites for evaluation, 6 less in comparison to its preceding competition.

The evaluation of websites was carried out with the following objectives:
To encourage agencies to use their websites as a major channel for sharing information and services.
To ensure regular updates and enhancements are made to websites.
To increase the utility of websites for our citizens.
To improve public service delivery

Eight independent evaluators consisting of experienced ICT personnel from domestic private IT firms and ISPs carried out the assessment. To ensure that the evaluators are protected their individual ratings have been kept confidential.
The actual evaluation was carried out in 3 rounds where each round was conducted for a period of approximately one and a half months. The entire duration of the competition was for approximately 9 months.

The top 10 websites are
www.moaf.gov.bt ,
www.nationalcouncil.bt,
www.dhi.bt
www.nab.gov.bt ,
www.mof.gov.bt ,
www.moea.gov.bt ,
www.samdrupjongkhar.gov.bt ,
www.bnb.bt ,
www.molhr.gov.bt ,
www.sjthromde.gov.bt

The bottom ten sites are the following:

113. www.oag.gov.bt,
114. www.countrystat.org,
115. www.bpn.gov.bt,
116. www.judiciary.gov.bt,
117. www.bcsea.bt ,
118. www.dagana.gov.bt ,
119. www.g2b.gov.bt ,
120. www.rcbajo.gov.bt ,
121. www.bhutanpedia.com
122. www.bhutan.gov.bt

Sites which were excluded due to duplication or inconsistency are :
www.bhutanseal.gov.bt
www.corrb.gov.bt
www.dtms.gov.bt
www.g2c.gov.bt

Over the time from the first assessment to second and now the third assessment, the general observations are that the frequency of information being uploaded and the currency of information on the sites have improved. The overall website's downtime has also decreased. However, there has not been much improvement in the design and the value additional features of the websites. Only few agencies such as National Council (www.nationalcouncil.bt), National Assembly of Bhutan(www.nab.gov.bt) and Royal Civil Service Commission (www.rcsc.gov.bt) has revamped their websites after the initiation of this competition. Other agencies still need to work on the authenticity and completeness of the information provided on their websites.