Shamsul Huy Chisti, former Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Mr. Shamsul Alarrl, former managing director of BCS. In response to the above recommendation of IDA and on the advice of the Honorable President of Bangladesh, the Ministry of Establishment established a Public Administration Computer Center (PACC) in July 1984 as part of the PMIS/MSW project. In its letter no. Estd(MSW dated 12.10.1987 requested the Rector of Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center (BPATC) to assess the performance and process of setting up a Public Administration Computer Centre.
The current study of the Public Administration Computing Center (PACC) is the first post-installation evaluation. Later, the functions of PACC were narrowed from the original objectives set in the PP to confirm the name with the assigned business of the Ministry of Institution. All the trained computer personnel have completed computer systems and programming courses in the country or abroad, mostly through the computer manufacturers.
Against the backdrop of this situation in the country, the government has decided to establish the Public Administration Computer Center (PACC) with a view to introducing computer applications into the personnel management functions of the Ministry of Establishment.
Establishment of PACC
Bangladesh first gained the attention of a computer company in 1965 when the IBM World Trade Corporation established its branch office in Dhaka. The other multinational computer manufacturing company to set up office in Dhaka was NCR in 1971. A number of other companies appointed agents and dealers in Bangladesh to handle these respective products and provide necessary services.
A 1985 research report also reveals that a total of 145 persons were employed as systems/programming staff in Bangladesh. I should mention that educational institutions in Bangladesh did not offer computer related courses until recently. In response to the above recommendation of IDA and on the advice of the Honorable President of Bangladesh, the Ministry of Establishment established the Public Administration Computer Center (PACC) in July.
Scope, Objectives and Methodology
This study aims to help the Ministry to assess the extent of achievement of the project objectives and at the same time guide other organizations in the establishment of their future IT systems. The Ministry of Establishment's main tasks are to prepare policies for decision-making in relation to personnel management, recruitment rules, planning of training programs, promotion procedures, etc. The present study also aims to review the procedures and processes adopted in needs assessment, procurement system, installation procedure and application of the system.
The study attempts to determine the degree of success of the PACC computer system in terms of operational efficiency, decision-making process and achievement of the objectives of PACC. Key informants were selected from/among the following categories: i) Direct user (system personnel). (ii) Current output users (beneficiaries). iii) Expected output users (beneficiaries) (b) Computer experts. Among the computer users and experts, the informants are Secretary, Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Senior Assistant Secretary, Deputy Secretary of Government of Bangladesh, Public Administration Computer Center Staff (PACC), Bangladesh Computer Board staff ( BCB), professor of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), staff of Project Implementation Office (PI0). and other relevant personnel.
The findings of the study were presented in the following format to maintain consistency with the broad objectives of the study mentioned on page 4:.
CONFORMITY BETWJ3EN STAFF APPRAISAL REPORT (SAR) OBJECTIVES AND THE OBJECTIVES OF PACC(PMIS)
CONFORMITY BETWEEN THE OBJECTIVES OF THE STAFF APPRAISAL REPORT (SAR) AND THE OBJECTIVES OF PACC (PMIS). iii) Training computer professionals for the government sector and providing leadership in this area to the private sector. iv) Providing qualification standards for computer professionals. v) Development of computer forms, introduction of new forms to facilitate automation and subsequent development in software technology and data processing systems. vi). Organize computer courses for senior officers. vii) Work as a controlling body for the introduction of computers in any other organization of the government. Some of these objectives (in PP) are not only beyond the scope of the World Bank's recommendations, but also beyond the designated functions of the Ministry of Establishment under government business rules.
For example, the purpose is to train computer professionals for the public sector and provide leadership in this area to the private sector or provide s t and d a r qualifications for computer professionals or to work with a controlling body for the introduction of computer in any other organization of the government. establishment ministry's assigned business. The proposal to keep data on non-gazetted government employees was not anticipated by the World Bank and it is difficult to stretch the PMIS (PACC) targets for SAR to find relevance to such an exercise. It has been observed that the main objectives and objectives of computerization of establishment ministry jobs were mixed with the general IT system of government oriented PMIS rather than Relational Data Base Management System (RDBMS) which should have been the main objective of PACC according to SAR -measurements.
Numerically, the burden of the Ministry of Institution envisaged processing the following information in the PACC (Table-2).
COBOL 5) RPG li
ASSEMBLER
The tender specification is shown in Table 7 and five bids/offers were received from Agents/Distributors/Vendors/Suppliers/Manufacturers having their branches in Bangladesh or in Table 8.
BASIC
- After sale services of the machine
- Migration and growth path of the machine
- Strategy for back-up and recovery of data
- M A C m E CONFIGURATION WITH SOFTWARE
Thus, from the remaining four tenders/offers, the committee gave the following ratings in order of merit:7. Breakdown of machines price along with maintenance cost is given below:8. as indicated in the bid). Source : Minutes of the PACC Tender & Implementation Committee (PACC-TIC) meeting held on 31.3.85 with Brig.
Hardware/CPU Name/No. of media ii) Removable Disk 2 Each Pack Disk size 512MB. vii) Matrix printer 1 Speed 100 characters per second (CPS). viii) Laser printer speed 8 pages per minute (PPlLlj. Dhaka, with Honeywell computers having: or less of the same type of system (configuration) as that of PACC and can be used at the time of system breakdown/disorder Also it turns out that diskettes and tapes are the means of carrying them to make them compatible and to process the d'ltabase system proposed by PACC on the aforementioned ccxllputer.
However, it should be noted that large PACC data cannot be transferred and processed via disk media. The quality of after sales service in a third world country like Bangladesh should be an important point of consideration to avoid computer system disaster due to poor quality of after sales service delivery by sellers/representatives etc. key factors that must be considered very critically when selecting a machine and manufacturer.
Purchase of removable disk drive System machine could have been avoided by PACC as the removable disk has flaws/risks. I can be damaged/crashed along with all the data on the disk, which ultimately hampers the basic concepts of the database system and results in extra c o s ~ s , l a b o u r and time. The ultimate goal of PACC was to minimize cost, labor and time which are the basic concepts also in the interactive system of DBMS to produce the basic outputs of PACC. It has been noted in the evaluation that the consumption rate of this disk is 14% so far.
If the data is lost on the removable disk of I'ACC's machine, it is very difficult to recover all the data from the damaged removable disks and make them readable in back-to-backup machine. Magnetic tapes can be used as secondary storage in addition to the removable disk to avoid severe degradation of removable disk.
COBOL
BASIC 4. RPG
- M V I E W OF CURRENT USE OF SOFTWARE ACCORDING TO NEED PACC is using mostly package software which is known as INFO-
- BENEFIC-ES IIEQULXIEMENTS ANALYSIS AND REACTIONS A n attempt tias been made in this section to determine the
- DATA COLLECTION AND DATA UPDATING PROCEDURES
The current PACC machine operating system is not well equipped and capable of properly handling all terrains with the existing machine memory size at all times. PACC's current products are being used by only a few sections of the foundation ministry. It is very essential to increase the skills and abilities of software and system personnel to develop software for its own system. This is a prerequisite to produce suitable results with suitable software programs a t PACC. The work done in PACC seems to depend mainly on the software package namely INFO-6.
The study reveals that PACC programmers have developed only a few original programs using languages other than the package software program. A continuous training process is required to continuously upgrade the knowledge and skills of PACC IT staff. It is found that out of 24 (twenty four) terminals, several computer terminals are installed in the premises of Secretaries, Additional Secretaries and Joint Secretaries.
Very few officers (senior or junior) are trained in the use of the computer or utilization of the services of the computer centre. Please mention the configuration of hardware and name of the software/programming languages finally approved by the N.C.C/Govt. Please state the name of the machine and its manufacturer that was purchased a s per last and final decision, What was she.
Please mention the name of the peripheral device and the network through which the backup was considered. / Name of the area / Application frequency of application per month.
If you are aware that upgraded version of the existing packages are available in the rnarket, please state whether you have tried to obtain them. I am there OFF LINE encoding machine available except that of the ON LINE terminal available with the system for data erlcoding. If so, please mention the names of the organizations from where this can be done and what media can be used for compatibility of PACC's machine.
How many additional skilled workers need to be deployed to ensure the center functions smoothly?
