Projects

1 Online collaborative suite project - Google apps

Foundation to move government that is almost totally reliant on paper to e-government.
Contract signed with Google for 5000 licenses - December 31, 2013.
Contract renewed with Google for 9000 licenses for 3 years - September, 2015.
As of June, 2016, 7700 google apps licenses have been activated.
DITT has carried out number of trainings on the usage to increase the adoption of Google Apps by the civil servants.
Benefits: Free up IT resources & efforts on IT Infra. Management, Secure & Reliable electronic mail system with online collaborative tools (Google docs, sheets, slides, etc.)

Online collaborative suite project - Google appsre

2 Automate G2G Project

Automate G2G is one of the component of the project titled “Expansion of G2C, G2B and G2G” being implemented by DITT. The other two components viz. G2C and G2B are with the G2C office under the Honorable Prime Minister’s office. The project is being funded by the Government of India under Project Tied Assistance(PTA) programme.

The main objective of the G2G component is to develop efficiencies into services through better integration and communication between central agencies and citizens through assessment and development of whole of the government back-end systems in line with the approved 11th five year E-Gov master plan document.
Some of the priority initiatives under the G2G initiatives are:
Development of Blueprint for National Payment Gateway and eCommerce

E-payment gateway system
E-Authentication solution
Digital Signature solution

Automate G2G Project

3 e-GIF/NEA

Bhutan has embarked upon a journey of a networked government through initiative of Electronic Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF). The e-GIF, in the broad sense, is a Government Enterprise Architecture (GEA) to define standards and best practices to enable ICT systems to better integrate and interoperate across the Royal Government of Bhutan (RGoB),and to align IT investment to the government business functions. Its objective is to serve as an overarching framework comprising of standards, guidelines, artefacts and best practices for government agencies to comply and re-use. The e-GIF is a work in-Progress and has many areas to be developed to meet the needs of e-Government in Bhutan.

The four domain architectures for Royal Government of Bhutan are:

Business Architecture
Data Architecture
Application Architecture
Technology Architecture

In addition to the architectures,e-GIF have Technology Standards, Enterprise Data Dictionary, and Data steward & Ownership guidelines.

e-GIF/NEA

4 eGov Governance

e-Government Governance Framework Institutionalized

The Cabinet vide the Government Executive Order C-2/422 dated June 27, 2014 has approved the institutionalization of e-Government Governance Framework in the country for compliance and implementation with immediate effect.

The rationale for establishing the e-Government Governance Framework is to ensure effective & smooth implementation of the e-Government Masterplan with clear visibility and accountability at all levels. This enables Government to streamline Whole of Government (WoG) ICT Planning & implementation in a holistic approach through:

Fostering collaboration & coordination across agencies to optimize and share ICT resources & infrastructure wherever possible.
Derive synergies through collaboration
Ensure prudent ICT investment through eGov review process by eliminating duplication of effort and resources.
Periodic monitoring on the progress of WoG systems implementation.

eGov Governance

5 Thimphu Wide Area Network

Thimphu Wide Area Network (TWAN)/Government Intranet is an optical fiber network and it connects government agencies and corporations in Thimphu providing network connectivity to G2C, G2G, Video Conference services and applications.
TWAN is extended to all 20 Dzongkhag administration offices and to Community Centers through Point-to-Point (P2P) connection to bring whole of government under one network umbrella.
TWAN was established in 2007 and it has network equipment viz routers, firewall, switches, servers and other ancillary electrical equipment.

Thimphu-Wide Area Network

6 Government Intranet

Through Govt. Intranet Project the department will revamp whole TWAN and extend TWAN connection to Dzongkhag, Gewog, Dungkhag and Regional Offices.
Following are the project components of the project:
1. Revamp Government Intranet.
2. LAN Installation in Gewog, Dungkhag and Regional Offices.
3. Extension of Government Intranet to Dzongkhag, Gewog, Dungkhag and Regional Offices.
4. HR Capacity Development.

Government Intranet

7 Government Data Centre(GDC)

The GDC project is a part of RGoB’s eGov initiative, funded by Government of India for the 11th Five Year Plan.
As the warm shell already exists in the data centre at Thimphu Tech Park, the project will utilize the space allocated(1000 sq.ft) to Government at TTPL and install server systems, storage and network.
Given space constraint and taking into account scalability requirement in the future, the strategy is to opt for a high density data centre solution which optimizes the use of space. The project is to be undertaken as a turnkey project whereby the vendor who supplies servers, storage and network systems also configure and also migration of agencies’ systems to the data center.

Government Data Centre(GDC)

8 Information Security and BtCIRT

The RGOB has approved Information Management and Security Policy of RGOB in 2009.
The establishment of BtCIRT is planned in 11 FYP with funding support from ITU and World Bank.
BtCIRT has started operation from 21st April.
The team comprises of 5 members who are full time staff of the DITT.
The BtCIRT provides services such as computer incident handling, security monitoring, assessment and mitigation and promoting awareness of cyber security risks and protection. If there are computer incidents, an individual or agency can report the issue through the form in the BtCIRT website (www.btcirt.bt) or directly contact the team over the phone or via emails at cirt@btcirt.bt.
The team will coordinate response activities and provide assistance to the affected individual or agency. In addition the team will proactively collect information regarding security vulnerabilities and it will communicate with constituents in order to disseminate appropriate vulnerability information.
The other service of BtCIRT is to raise general awareness of security threats by using different instruments such as meetings, seminars, articles, media and similar methods.
A sensitization/awareness workshop was carried out from 19th - 21st April, 2016 on the operation of a CIRT. The workshop was attended by ICT focal points from ministries, large autonomous agencies, banks , ISPs, Bhutan Power corporation and other relevant stakeholders.

Information Security and BtCIRT

9 Electronic Waste Management

DITT was identified as the lead organization for managing e-waste in the country.
DITT contributed to frame e-waste section of National Waste Prevention and Management Regulation 2012.
Under Chiphen Rigpel Project DITT also provided training on the regulation and e-waste management to dzongkhag and thromde environment officers and ICT officers.
DITT has carried out national level advocacy program through an animation clip aired on BBS on e-waste management
DITT with support from Dzongkhag Environmental Officers have already carried out advocacy programs in 20 dzongkhags and 4 Thromdes.

Electronic Waste Management

10 Video Conferencing System

VC system in 10 ministries, 20 dzongkhags and the Prime Minister’s Office was set up since 2011.

Video Conferencing System

11 Bhutan Telecommunications and Broadband Policy 2014

The telecommunications and broadband policy is approved by the Cabinet in December 2014.
Activities contained in the policy have either been reflected in sectors’ or in DITT’s 11th FYP.
The establishment of a telecommunications division under DITT has been approved by the government.
ICT Champions recognized for two consecutive years. This recognition should be continued hereon to foster and support innovation in and use of ICTs.

Bhutan Telecommunications and Broadband Policy 2014

12 National Broadband Master Plan Implementation Project

Project started in 10 FYP with total outlay of Nu. 900 million, which was subsequently after one year reduced to Nu. 600 million.
Included in the project is also Nu 10 million that was provided to BPC to establish international gateway in Phuntsholing. This budget has been utilized to procure SDH equipment. So the total budget for the project stood at Nu 610 million. (600 from GOI and 10 from RGOB)
Till date 20 districts and 196 gewogs have been connected with fiber. Remaining gewogs, except for those gewogs not on grid electricity, are scheduled to be connected by December 2016. 18 districts are connected with OPGW while Trashi Yangtse, Gasa and all gewogs are/will be on ADSS.
Additional budget of 54 million asked from GNHC. Nu. 20 million in the last FYP and 34 during 11 FYP. Nu. 34 request has received approval and only Nu. 5 million left from remaining budget to be spent.
BPC executed the works, further contracting the works to LS Cables of South Korea for OPGW part and Aksh Technologies, India, for ADSS.
An agreement between BPC and DITT specifies the details of collaboration both during execution of the project and O&M of the fiber assets.
According to the agreement, among other things, BPC is to be paid 10% of the project cost as management fees.
O&M of fibers has been entrusted to BPC. For this BPC is to be paid 2.1% of the asset value as O&M fees. BPC has to maintain 98% uptime of fibers.
A depreciation fund is maintained by BPC with BDBL. To this the government deposits 3.17% of the project cost. The fund is to be utilized to replace OPGW and ADSS fibers at the end of life. It can also be utilized by BPC, with prior approval of DITT, to replace fibers, damaged by force majeure events.
There are two committees instituted to oversee the national fiber optics network: A committee called Systems Coordination Committee (SCC) and Technical Coordination Committee (TCC) to monitor the health and upkeep of fiber is formed with DITT, BPC, BT, TICL, DrukCom as the stakeholders. Director DITT is a member of SCC. The chairman of the committee is taken up on a rotational basis. The committee meets quarterly and has already conducted 6 such meetings so far. Head, Telecom Div is a member of the TCC.

National Broadband Master Plan Implementation Project

13 SASEC Information Highway Project

SASEC Information Highway project was started in 2009 and has spilled over to 11 FYP. Its completion deadline has been extended to December 2014.
Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan are participating in this project under ADB.
Bhutan has three components; two of these, i.e., village network and regional network are implemented by DITT, while the third component, Research and Training Network (RTN) is implemented directly by ADB.
Bhutan village network, establishing/equipping 30 community centers has been completed. The project has established fiber connectivity and internet (sharing from Dzongkhag Local Area Networks) to these 30 as well as another 101 CCs. Procurement will be soon carried out to establish same connectivity for another 54 CCs, taking the total of CCs connected through this project to 185 CCs.
The regional network, consisting of Thimphu-Phuntsholing and Thimphu-Gelephu routes is getting built by RailTel Corporation of India Limited. The contract was signed in July 10, 2013. It is scheduled for completion by March 2014.
MOIC has provided two pairs of fibers on each route for the network. The equipment of the regional network will be collocated at Bhutan Telecom facilities under Service Agency agreement.
Bhutan Telecom Limited (BT) has been recruited through a competitive process as Bhutan’s Service Agency (SA), which will operate and manage Bhutan’s regional network. An agreement has been signed between DITT and Bhutan Telecom to this effect. The agreement specifies the responsibilities of each party including payment to BT.
This payment to BT will have to be budgeted every year.
As required under the project BT as the Bhutan’s SA has signed bilateral agreements with SA of other three countries.
Once Bhutan completes its part further connectivity to Siliguri, the regional hub, will be provided by NKN of India.
RTN requires high speed connectivity of the 30 CCs to the regional network to access resources at College of Science and Technology (CST). Sherubtse College also requires connections to CST for developers to upload resources to servers at CST. For this purpose it has been agreed with RTN team and has already chosen 30 CCs along the regional network routes and connectivity to the regional network which will achieve connectivity to CST is undergoing.

SASEC Information Highway Project

14 ThimDomestic Internet Exchange Point (IXP)phu Wide Area Network

The infrastructure to facilitate peering among the ISPs has already been put in place, the SASEC OFC network connecting all the ISPs.
BT and TICL have already peered on SASEC OFC
The upcoming Druk Research and Education Network (DrukREN) project has already provisioned for establishing an IXP in Bhutan. Talks has already been initiated with all ISPs and they have welcomed the proposal.
When ISPs are not peered with each other, time required to access the local content is high and most of the bandwidth is used up in that process. Thus the services to access the international content are then hampered, reducing the international bandwidth usage of the country. If peering is established, not only will it speed up access to local content but bandwidth for international connectivity can also be freed thus, improving the services and increasing the bandwidth usage in the country. Basically, the intent is to segregate the international and local traffic so that the local traffic does not clog the international bandwidth. This way, even the billing could be done based on the type of traffic used with end users the ultimate beneficiary.

Domestic Internet Exchange Point (IXP)

15 Telecommunications Regulations

Four important Telecommunications regulations are drafted with support from ITU:
1. Telecommunications Competition Regulation
2. Telecommunications Interconnection Regulation
3. Domestic Roaming Regulation
4. MVNO regulation
The above drafts have gone through consultative process with the stakeholders and their feedback wherever necessary are incorporated
The OAG was also consulted on the regulations and have provided their feedback
The regulations will be put for approval to the Ministry as per the BICM Act 2006

Telecommunications Regulations

16 Telecommunications Studies

The following studies will be carried out:

Telecom studies
1. World Bank funded project to develop Tariff regulation, QoS framework and regulation, and introduction of alternative services in telecom market
2. Contract signed with the consultant and work will commence from February, 2016
Feasibility study for Regional Telecommunications Connectivity
1. World Bank funded project to conduct feasibility study on establishment of 3rd international gateway, domestic redundancy, fiber monitoring system, O&M module of fiber network.
2. Firm identified, contract finalization in process. Work to commence as soon as the contract is signed.
Wireless Broadband Masterplan for Bhutan
1. Study conducted through ITU TA to develop a masterplan.
2. Consultation service completed with review of 1st draft in process.
Disaster Management strategies

Telecommunications Studies

17 Draft BICM Act

The BICM Act 2006 is undergoing revision which is to be re-submitted to Cabinet for endorsement to be discussed in the upcoming summer session of parliament.
Inputs from the Department is required for the ICT/Telecommunications and the cyber Security portion of the Act.
The draft has been presented to cabinet 3 times with each session resulting in specific changes and recommendations.
Based on the final instructions of the Cabinet the act has been changed and presented to the ministry and shared with the OAG as instructed.
The OAG has requested for time and therefore at the moment it looks unlikely that the act can be presented to the summer session of parliament.

Draft BICM Act

18 Separation of Infrastructure & creation of Telecom Division

The establishment of a telecom division under DITT has been approved by the government in December 2014 through approval of Bhutan Telecommunications and Broadband Policy.
RCSC through OD exercise has already approved 7 new recruits and 3 redeployment.
Requirement of 3 Engineers for recruitment in 2016 is submitted and approved by RCSC. New recruits to join by January 2016.
RCSC has recruited 3 officers for Telecom division

Separation of Infrastructure & creation of Telecom Division

19 International Redundancy from Cox’s Bazaar

Discussion on this was started during former government when Lyonpo himself had discussed and secured concurrence from his Bangladeshi counterpart.
The GoI has also given its concurrence and asked us to deal with operators since they felt it was a techno-commercial initiative.
The plan is to either set up a third international gateway preferably at Samdrup Jongkhar or in Gelephu if Samdrup Jongkhar is not feasible.
Several rounds of meetings have been held with Bhutan Telecom and Tashi InfoComm to realize this connection. However they are citing difficulties due to lack of interest from their partners in India.
Power grid of India’s support has been secured. They have shared their fiber routes which could be used for this purpose. The same has been shared with BT and TICL
A consultative workshop of BT, TICL, their partners from India, PGCIL and MOIC would help to take this forward.

International Redundancy from Cox’s Bazaar

20 Druk Research and Education Network and connection to TEIN*4

Bhutan has been participating in Trans Eurasia Information Network (TEIN) Project since 2009 while the project was TEIN3. Project is now called TEIN4, the number indicating its advancement.
TEIN is now managed by TEIN*CC, called TEIN cooperation centre, under the aegis of South Korean government.
Bhutan is a member of the project and Director is a governing member of TEIN*CC board. Bhutan pays a membership fee of around Nu. 100,000 annually.
TEIN supports Bhutan in a number of network and security trainings every year and to attend TEIN meetings.
Royal University of Bhutan has also been engaged with the initiative by availing some of the trainings and awareness programs.
While TEIN is Bhutan’s gateway to global research and education network, having a research and education network inside the country is very important. Therefore a research and education network under RUB is planned in11 FYP. The envisaged network has been named DrukREN for Druk Research and Education Network in discussion with RUB.
SASEC Regional Network will be re-purposed to Druk Research and Education Network.
The RUB has already agreed to collaborate on the project. DITT will build this network, and operate the network once completed.
Bhutan’s connection to TEIN will be achieved through the regional network currently being built under SASEC Information Highway project and National Knowledge Network (NKN) of India. Since NKN is connected to TEIN, Bhutan’s connection to TEIN will be achieved. Other alternatives are also being explored to connect to NKN, India.
A discussion of this was held between DITT, NKN, and other SASEC countries in 2014. NKN has committed to connect Bhutan once regional network reaches Siliguri. NKN is also in the process of studying alternative routes to connect DrukREN with NKN.
Contract to supply for equipment, accessories and installation and commissioning of DrukREN has been awarded.
Project Implementation is ongoing.

Druk Research and Education Network and connection to TEIN*4

21 Wimax Project

A Wimax project under APT funding was implemented in 2012-2013.
The technology has been established in three sites of Ura, Phobjikha and Shengana.
A presentation of the project’s success was also made by the division to APT meeting in Bangladesh in 2013.
Tashi InfoComm was the partner ISP for the project. An agreement has been executed between DITT and Tashi InfoComm.
The WiMax network is handed over to Tashi InfoComm and they are required to report to DITT on a routine basis on their learnings from the pilot project.

Wimax Project

22 TV white space project

A TV white space pilot project is executed under the aegis of Ministry of Finance under ADB funding. MOH and MOIC are implementing partners.
MOH will trial HP telemedicine kit. MOIC will collaborate to establish TV white space and the connectivity required which will be used by the chosen sites.
Tang BHU has been chosen as the pilot site and Bumthang district hospital as the referral site.
Bhutan Telecom is the connectivity partner. An agreement has been signed with BT to this effect.
Spectrum for the purpose has been secured and is to be paid by the project. ADB has agreed to the payment.
The project is for duration of one year. After this period MOH as the user will pay for the connectivity and O&M.

TV white space project

23 Internet Connection to Schools and Hospitals using USF

With reference to the letter C-3/77/806 dated 29th June, 2015, as part of the 60th Birth Anniversary Celebration, the Media and Communications Sub-Committee under MoIC initiated an activity to connect schools with Internet in honor of His Majesty the 4th Druk Gyalpo’s initiative to introduce Internet in the country. The government approved the proposed internet connectivity to fifty schools through the Universal Service Fund (USF) with a budget estimate of Nu.7 million in principal.

In addition to the above, there is possibility of connecting the remaining unconnected schools with internet using the Universal Service Fund (USF). Therefore, the ministry, requested MoE to submit a list of remaining schools that need internet connectivity. The Ministry of Education(MoE) submitted the list of schools on 30th November 2015. There are 47 schools that need internet connection. From 47 schools, there is one school with no electricity. Therefore total cost of estimates were made for 46 schools.

During the mid term review of APA 2014-2015 held in Paro on March 12-13,2015, Hon’ble Prime Minister instructed to connect a few selected BHUs for Telemedicine. In continuation to Honorable PM’s instruction, the ministry, requested MoH to submit a list of potential BHUs and Hospitals at all levels from 20 Dzongkhags. MoH submitted the potential number of health centres. The list submitted included 31 health centres comprising 16 Dzongkhag hospitals and 15 BHUs.

Internet connection to remaining schools and health centres will be initiated with approval from the cabinet. The department has submitted the note to the cabinet for approval.

Internet Connection to Schools and Hospitals using USF