Tk 800 million spent developing 12 software tools: How useful have they been?

On 15 December last year, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, special assistant to the chief adviser of the former interim government, launched an artificial intelligence (AI) platform called Kagoj.ai. One of the services offered by the platform is optical character recognition (OCR), which can convert text in images or documents into editable Word files.

Speaking as the chief guest at the launch ceremony, Taiyeb said, “We want to make the best use of technology to make language accessible. By leveraging various opportunities offered by artificial intelligence, people will be able to use the different features of Kagoj Tools.”

However, the government service appears to have very limited usage. Meanwhile, Google Lens, available on almost everyone's smartphone, can easily convert text from images or documents into editable Word files. Many other apps also offer this service free of charge. These apps were launched long before the government introduced Kagoj.ai.

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division has spent Tk 800 million developing 12 software tools to facilitate the use of Bangla in information technology. These include tools for converting audio into text, correcting spelling and grammar, and translating Bangla into other languages, among others. The development process has taken 10 years.

The project, titled Enrichment of Bangla Language in Information Technology through Research and Development, was launched in 2016 under the Awami League government. It is being implemented by the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC), an agency under the ICT Division. The project has an allocation of Tk 1.58 billion, funded by the government. Its tenure has been extended three times, most recently in August, when the deadline was extended to June 2028.

People familiar with the matter say the new government should have reviewed projects undertaken by the Awami League government in the ICT sector, scrapped most of them and ensured accountability of those involved. Instead, the project tenures are being extended.

Asked about the project, ICT Secretary Md Mamunur Rashid Bhuiyan told Prothom Alo, “Several tools have been developed under the Bangla language enrichment project. However, I would not say that all of them have been particularly meaningful. The tools have not reached people in the way they were supposed to.”

He added, “We are working on bringing the tools together on a single platform and making them user-friendly so that people can access them.”

The secretary also said that ongoing projects in the ICT sector had not been discontinued. Rather, the authorities had reviewed which projects needed to continue and to what extent they were justified.

“We have reassessed the scope of 10 to 12 projects and dropped the components that we considered unnecessary,” he said.

However, the expenditure on the Bangla language enrichment project in information technology has not been reduced under the current government.

How much has been spent, how many people are using the tools?

The project titled Enrichment of Bangla Language in Information Technology through Research and Development initially envisaged developing 16 software applications, tools and technological resources. According to people involved in the project, work on 12 components has been completed over the past 10 years. However, not all of these services are fully operational or easily accessible to the general public.

Various Bangla-language software and services developed under the project are available on the website bangla.gov.bd. An AI assistant named 'Jiggasha' has been introduced to provide information about government services. Other initiatives include a screen reader for visually impaired people, sign language recognition, a Braille converter, a database of languages spoken by ethnic minority communities, and Bangla fonts and keyboards.

According to project sources, around Tk 800 million has been spent so far. Of this, Tk 600 million has gone towards software development, hosting and maintenance. The remaining amount has been spent on office decoration, meetings, seminars, campaigns and operational costs.

Concerned persons say these software applications and technologies are still at a preliminary stage. An investigation is needed to determine how much expenditure was shown for developing each tool and how much was actually spent.

An analysis of usage data for the different services under the project shows considerable variations in their popularity. For example, the AI chatbot 'Jiggasha', designed to provide information about government services, receives an average of 110 requests a day during its trial run. Meanwhile, the font conversion service processed 275 files over 35 days. The Bangla spelling checker receives around 500,000 requests a day on average, while the OCR service on Kagoj.ai receives about 50 requests daily.

To assess the effectiveness of these technologies developed by the ICT Division, Prothom Alo tested several tools at different times over the past month.

The tests found that the Bangla spelling checker performed quite well. However, the audio-to-text service encountered problems when processing large files. The AI-powered chatbot Jiggasha could answer general questions but sometimes provided misleading information in response to complex queries.

Project officials said the existing GPU capacity allows the services to cater to only a limited number of users simultaneously. A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialised computer processor used to run artificial intelligence models and process large volumes of data quickly.

Officials claim that the existing capacity can serve between 5,000 and 10,000 users simultaneously across the different services. However, users may have to wait when demand is high. As a result, additional GPUs and infrastructure are needed to make the services widely accessible to the general public.

The question is: if technologies developed at a cost of nearly Tk 1.58 billion cannot be made suitable for public use because of inadequate infrastructure, who will keep them operational after the project ends?

Asked about this, project director Mahbub Karim told Prothom Alo that the technology and databases would be handed over to the Bangladesh Computer Council after the project was completed. He said there would also be scope to purchase additional GPUs or increase capacity as needed in the future.

Past experience, however, has not been encouraging. During the Awami League government's tenure, a Tk 3.3 billion project was undertaken to develop mobile games and applications. Most of the games and apps developed under that project proved useless. People familiar with the matter said the projects were undertaken largely to award contracts to people close to those in power. More than 17 per cent of the total project expenditure went towards making films and games named after members of the Sheikh family.

Those involved in the Bangla language enrichment project argue that its objectives are different. They say its significance lies not merely in developing software but also in creating the databases necessary for advancing artificial intelligence and language technology in Bangla.

According to them, around 8,000 copyright-free books have been digitised under the project. They have also developed 10,000 hours of audio data for converting spoken Bangla into text and 1,000 hours of audio data for converting text into speech. In addition, more than 12,000 minutes of audio recordings in 44 languages spoken by ethnic minority communities and 42,800 sign language videos have been collected.

Experts, however, say the project's success cannot be judged solely by the number of software applications developed or the volume of data collected. The key considerations should be how widely these technologies are being used, how effective they are and how long they will remain operational after the project ends.

During the Awami League government's tenure, which ended following the July mass uprising, 21 projects were undertaken in the ICT sector in the name of building Digital Bangladesh. According to the ICT Division, the approved expenditure for these projects totalled nearly Tk 190 billion.

A 12-member committee was formed on 28 August 2024 to evaluate the projects. In its report, the committee said some projects included activities that had little or no connection with their stated objectives. Others contained components that did not fall under the jurisdiction of the ICT Division. The committee estimated that Tk 6.981 billion could be saved by removing unnecessary components.

The projects were undertaken in the name of developing apps, providing freelancing training, building ICT infrastructure, setting up IT parks and establishing incubation centres. Former ICT State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak faced the most allegations of irregularities and corruption in connection with these projects. He is now in prison. Many others involved in the projects have yet to be held accountable.

Asked about the matter, Professor BM Mainul Hossain of the Institute of Information Technology at the University of Dhaka told Prothom Alo that there were widespread allegations of irregularities and corruption in various ICT sector projects.

“Simply extending project deadlines without examining past practices and project outcomes amounts to condoning the activities of the previous administration,” he said.