Awami League is far behind in operating party activities using the digital system. Although this ruling party is the craftsman of digital Bangladesh, they are not fully digitalized. Although there is an official website of Awami League, it is not updated regularly. Even the grass-root level of the party is out of the touch of the digital system. The central authority of the party communicates with the grass root level members using the analog system. On the other hand, BNP is ahead in this regard. The website of BNP is updated regularly and daily activities of the party are also being posted there.
On the other hand, though Sajib Wazed Joy, the Information and Technology Affairs Advisor of the Prime Minister had given the laptops to every district office of AL, activists are not using those showing the excuse of security problems in the offices.
On the official website of Awami league- albd.org, in the ‘party news’ section the last news has been posted on 17 April. And the last grass-root level news has been updated last on 24 December 2014. However, the party President-Prime Minister's section is updated more or less. But the website also lags behind in this regard. It was found on Saturday night (September 16th), the Prime Minister's speech given in the question-answer session of national parliament On Wednesday (September 13th), is being posted there. But her speech in Parliament on the 16th Amendment on that day was not being posted there. The next day (September 14th) she gave the concluding speech of Parliament but that was not also available on the website. The Prime Minister left Dhaka on Saturday to join the UN General Assembly's 72nd session, but this news was not available on the website of the party.
The constitution of Awami League uploaded on the website, was approved by the council of 2009. But the updated constitution of 2016 with some amendments is not available there.
The biography of the party president Sheikh Hasina is not also up to date there. She became the Prime Minister for the third time when Awami League won the national election. But this information is not available there. Besides, though she got some international prizes in this term and the previous term, no information is available about this.
Although the names of the leaders of the current committee are mentioned in the organization section of the website, the address book section is not up to date.
On this regard Barrister Biplab Barua, Deputy Office Secretary of Awami league said to the Bangla Tribune, ‘CRI (Center for Research and Information), the research cell of the party oversees the website. They do the task of including and excluding information.’
Tonmoy Ahmed, Associate Coordinator, CRI said the Bangla Tribune, ‘In some cases, there are some errors. We are making the website user-friendly and developing a mobile version of it considering the upcoming election. It will be launched within this month. Then you get up to date information there.’
From the official sources, it is known that 90% activities at the grassroots level are done in the analog system. Most of the district and Upazila offices don’t have any email ID. They communicate over the mobile phone or use the courier services to send and receive documents. And as a result, decisions of the central committee reach lately to the grass-roots levels. And complexities also arise because of (for) this process.
While contacted, more than one presidium members of Awami League, they themselves examined the fact and expressed surprise not seeing update news. However, they expressed their inability to say anything officially.
On this regard Barrister Biplab Barua said that for urgent communication and exchange information, they use the mobile phone. Besides they also use the courier services to exchange letters.
However, the social media of Awami League Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts are regularly updated.
