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India and Bhutan's relationship is climbing to a new height as New Delhi has been proactively supporting Bhutan in its efforts to establish a digital infrastructure, The Bhutan Live reported.
On January 31, the Indian government announced its help for the development of Bhutan's third international internet gateway. According to the Embassy of India in Bhutan, the government will facilitate a concessional rate to reduce the cost of the gateway's operations. This new announcement is a part of the expanding India-Bhutan digital collaboration. India is collaborating with Bhutan on a number of technology initiatives. Under Bhutan's Flagship Program 'Digital Drukyul', an optical fibre backbone has been provided to the gewog (village) level across all 20 districts of Bhutan. Bhutan's third international internet gateway would enhance internet bandwidth, connect remote pockets of Bhutan and decrease the cost of internet connectivity for users, according to The Bhutan Live. India is one of the most reliable development parts for Bhutan as it has already donated Rs 198 crore during the 12th Five Year Plan (2018-23) in order to support the digital transformation of Bhutan via several people-centric projects in education, e-governance, trade and service delivery. Bhutan's ICT Policy (2009) has overall policy objectives of using ICT for good governance, creating a Bhutanese info culture; and a hi-tech habitat. The government of Bhutan is working with India to realize these goals. In support of Bhutan's digital infrastructure goal, the Indian Embassy had earlier organized a technology roundtable with Bhutan's leading technology and innovation experts to discuss ways to enhance Indo-Bhutan cooperation in the digital technology sector. The roundtable called by the Indian Embassy witnessed the participation of representatives from the De-Sung Skilling Programme, the Royal Society for STEM, The Royal Government of Bhutan, Thimpu Tech part Ltd, Govtech Agency, Druk Gyalpo's Institute and several civil society organizations and various private sector tech companies in Bhutan. This itself is evidence of the increasing interest of Bhutan stakeholders in enhancing collaboration with India, given India's shining track record in digital technology, as per the report in The Bhutan Live. Even, during the Covid pandemic, the Bhutanese government launched the G2B digital government portal, using UNCTAD's customizable digital platform. Then, it had been described as a groundbreaking piece of software that earned the country recognition as the fastest place in the world to start a new business. Now the journey of digitalization in the country would continue in cooperation with India. Digitalization would help small businesses, 90 per cent of which are cottage industries. Micro enterprises of the country would use this technology for quick access to consumers to deliver their products and services. In his recent three-day official visit (18-20 January) to Bhutan on the invitation of his Bhutanese counterpart Pema Choden, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra held significant bilateral meetings and conveyed India's firm commitment to taking India-Bhutan ties into new frontiers of partnership. The two sides held wide-ranging discussions on the entire gamut of bilateral relations including development partnership under Bhutan's 12th Five Year Plan, energy cooperation, technology, trade and economic ties and people-to-people contacts, reported The Bhutan Live. (ANI)
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