Published : 31 Aug 2026, 11:07 PM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:37 AM
Despite many government services being officially available online, 68 percent of women still have to go in person to government offices or leave home to complete them, a study by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has found.
The findings were presented by CPD Research Fellow Tamim Ahmed at a hotel in Dhaka on Monday.
According to the study, only 31.9 percent of women surveyed were able to complete government e-services entirely online.
Another 20.8 percent said they completed most of the process online but still had to do some paperwork. A further 38 percent said they only submitted forms online and had to complete the remaining steps offline.
Some 1.8 percent said they initially submitted forms online but later had to return in person to follow up and complete the process. Another 7.5 percent said they completed the entire process offline although the service was supposed to be available online.
Overall, 68.1 percent of the women surveyed had to visit a government office or go outside their homes at some stage of the process.
Tamim said the study found that many services labelled as e-services still require significant "backend" work that forced users to visit offices.
"Although it is officially called an e-service, in reality, people still have to go to an office at some stage to receive the service. So, in practice, we cannot call it an e-service," he said.
The study also examined why women had to visit offices. Some 54.3 percent said they needed to submit documents in person, while 51.8 percent needed to collect documents. Another 28.9 percent had to go to provide signatures and 22.3 percent had to make payments.
About 6.6 percent said they had to visit local government officials to pay bribes. Another 6.1 percent needed to go in person to prepare required documents, while 6.1 percent had to visit local officials to follow up on their applications. Other reasons accounted for 1 percent of cases.
The survey covered 2,611 women, young people and members of marginalised communities. Women accounted for 957 respondents, selected from all divisions of Bangladesh. Participants had received at least one government e-service during the previous two years.
CPD Executive Director Fahmida Khatun said many people were unaware of the services available or reluctant to use them.
"Raising awareness is very important, and there also needs to be trust," she said, adding that a smooth experience would increase confidence and encourage wider use of e-services.
