Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2015-09-22

Improving the Infrastructure Facilities of the Government Information Technology and Communication

The Government of Sri Lanka has taken many progressive measures introducing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the Government Institutions. Such initiatives have contributed towards bringing in awareness of ICT and increased use of ICT equipment and solutions in the Government Institutions. However, the internet links in most of the Ministries and Government Institutions function extremely slow and as a result it has become difficult to collaborate with other Government Institutes in sharing documents and in the process of approval. Due to the instability of the network connection, most of the Government officers have found it difficult even to sending messages via e-mail. At the same time, one of the key constraints attributed by all Government Institutions as a major deterrence towards implementing ICT solutions is the unavailability of proper Government Computing Infrastructure facilities which host services for Information Technology (IT) systems, connectivity and secure data communication. However, a large amount of money is spent from the Government Budget to maintain such IT connectivity. One of the primary objectives of the Ministry of Finance is to establish a mechanism to enable the efficient use of Government Funds and it is linked with the implementation of IT solutions as well. Therefore, it is utmost important to provide proper computing infrastructure facilities to the Government Institutions. Accordingly, the proposal made by Hon. Ravi Karunanayake, the Minister of Finance, to design and implement a digital infrastructure for high speed internet connection, secured communications for efficient collaboration within the Government by upgrading its Lanka Government Network (LGN) through the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) being the apex ICT Institution of the country, was approved by the Cabinet.