The government is set to undertake a major digital transformation initiative aimed at increasing revenue collection and preventing tax evasion by integrating the databases of multiple government agencies.
Under the initiative, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) will be connected with the national payment gateway, private sector Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the Planning Commission, the Public Procurement Authority, and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General will also be included in the integrated network.
Officials said the initiative is designed to promote need-based budgeting, ensure transparency, and enhance efficiency in development project implementation.
At a recent meeting held under the Strengthening Institutions for Transparency and Accountability (SITA) project, Planning Adviser Dr. Wahiduddin Mahmud presided over discussions focused on plans for data integration and the establishment of a National Data Governance Authority.
During the meeting, Chief Adviser’s Special Assistant Faiz Ahmad Tayyab presented a concept paper outlining the proposed framework. The paper emphasized that all government software should be procured from domestic sources, with source codes owned and stored by the government to minimize dependence on foreign vendors for maintenance and upgrades.
According to Planning Commission officials, the digital transformation project will be executed in three phases.
In the first phase, interoperability will be established among the existing software systems of various government agencies to enable seamless data exchange. This will be achieved through sector-specific Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and middleware integration to create a unified data exchange standard.
The concept paper stated that while the SITA framework and the software of BBS and NBR are owned by different entities, using common backend and middleware protocols will allow standardized and secure data sharing.
In the second phase, a National Data Governance and Interoperability Authority will be formed to oversee a national data exchange system linking the core databases of all ministries. The authority will operate a license-free, vendor-neutral platform and centrally store all source codes.
In the third phase, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies will be used to assist in economic policy formulation and implementation, based on the unified data system.
The concept paper also proposed making the NBR system fully interoperable with the national payment gateway, NPSB, RTGS, BEFTN, ekPay, Google Pay, and SSL to enable automatic generation of e-invoices. Linking NBR with local business ERP systems would allow tax, VAT, and transaction data to be stored directly in the revenue board’s database. Corporate tax collection could also be automated through the electronic Tax Deduction at Source (eTDS) platform.
Tayyab further suggested deploying microservice-based AI in each sectoral data exchange to automatically detect suspicious transactions or asset changes and notify relevant agencies. Through this system, NBR would instantly receive data on asset transfers such as car or land purchases, while BFIU and ACC would get real-time alerts on suspicious transactions.
Dr. Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said Bangladesh remains stuck in a cycle of low-budget formulation and weak implementation due to limited revenue collection capacity. She noted that integrating banks, payment gateways, and stock exchanges would significantly enhance tax collection and reduce corruption through automation.
Bd-pratidin English/ ANI
