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THE police in Bangladesh presently spend a great deal of their time in writing diaries of cases and investigations by hand. The system has hardly changed since the colonial era. Records of criminals are similarly kept in the old manner hardly befitting the need for speed when the soaring number of crimes and the requirement for voluminous investigation reports dictate much speedier handling. In some police stations of the country, old files even turn unreadable from long non-use and the careless or unprotected maintenance system. Computers can come to the rescue in such a situation. A single computer in a police station can make redundant thousands of files accumulated over the years and release space at the station and extra time for the policemen for their field work as they would not have to do so much tedious writing work. Furthermore, computerisation can tremendously aid detection of criminals as their pictures an be preserved in computers and the same can be brought to the screen any time on a flick of the mouse.
The same kind of efficiency, speed of working, transparency and reduction of corruption can be achieved by introducing computers in all spheres of the state administration. The customs department is considered as a very corrupt one in Bangladesh. But the use of computer -- which has much reduced the need for human application -- is reportedly already succeeding in bringing corruption down in this key department. With its greater computerisation, perhaps corruption in this department can be reduced substantially.
There is real hope that greater application of computers for governance can be a very potent factor in reducing corruption in the government as well as for speeding up functioning of the government departments.
M A Bari
Uttara,
Dhaka
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