DG drops pvt firm's data centre access order

The order came two days after bdnews24.com reported the matter.

The Director General’s (DG) office told bdnews24.com that its earlier order had been revoked on Sunday. On Nov 6, the DG Khondokar Md Shefayetullah, in a surprising order, gave a private firm full access to the MIS’s ‘data centre’ to enable what the order describes as ‘automation’ of doctors’ confidential annual performance reports. Following the directive, Director Admin asked the ACR office to hand over all the annual confidential reports of the 23,000 officers, most of them doctors, to the private firm Nazdaq Technology. bdnews24.com carried a report on Friday, prompting the Director Admin to review the step. He told bdnews24.com on Saturday that, now, only 100 ACRs, under strict government supervision, would be given for ‘automation’ on an experimental basis. The DG’s step had even surprised the Senior Secretary of the Public Administration, who had told bdnews24.com on Friday that there was no question of the ACRs being shared with others. He said the data was highly confidential and the room where they were managed was out of bounds to general people. Some officials had earlier told bdnews24.com that the DG’s office had awarded the automation job to Nazdaq without floating any tender as one of the firm’s patrons was an influential contractor of the DG office. Health Minister AFM Ruhal Haque had told bdnews24.com on Friday that he had not known of the development before being told about it, and promised to investigate.