For many years, the citizens of rural Bangladesh have been suffering for getting immediate assistance in child marriage, violence
against women, eve-teasing, drugs, food adulteration, healthcare, land services, complaints about government services, purchase of
medicines or daily necessities, registration of digital commerce, cyber security assistance, legal assistance to women and child abuse
etc and receiving services from the age-old traditional bureaucratic public service delivery system through various government
agencies at different administrative tiers and have been looking for a change.

In the present age of alternative service delivery options and the nearly ubiquitous presence of digital technologies, citizens have
increased desires to get services more quickly with less time, visit and efforts. In the past, citizens had to encounter face-to-face
interactions with government officials, a process that was intimidating for the less literate and opportune for rent-seeking.
The prevailing archaic public service delivery model posed challenges for many interventions.

Thus, the ‘333’ initiative is an attempt to bring a significant change in providing administrative and legal support to redress social
problems and public service delivery system and to translate the current government’s vision of smart Bangladesh by 2041. Through
implementing various dimensions of developed Bangladesh to achieve the SDG targets by 2030, the government endeavors to
mainstream ICT as the pro-poor tool for poverty eradication, good governance and social equity. Granting the benefits of ICT to
everyone requires to citizens to connect the ICT infrastructure, majority of whom (nearly 70%) live in rural areas.

The program ‘333’ is the representation of an important nexus of service delivery decentralization, the strengthening of local
governments and community empowerment. Other than providing various government online information and services along with a
number private service, the ‘333’ platform has now become a hub for getting legal and administrative assistance to resolve various
social problems seeking information about different government services. To achieve the goal of becoming developed country and
creating a smart Bangladesh, the Government of Bangladesh took an initiative to save time, reduce operational costs and reduce
number of visits and to expand the accessibility and availability of information to the citizens by introducing a 24×7 Call Centre Service
named ‘333’. Considering the unique internet penetration of around 50% in Bangladesh, the Government took a very challenging step
by its ‘333’ project under the auspices a2i authority of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to provide the
alternative opportunity primarily to almost 50 percent of non-internet users but in general to the citizens who have access to cell phone
to get access to the government information and services. Government also took this initiative to bring the citizens to get all the
government and even non-government essential information and services from a one-stop 24×7 Call Centre based service platform
‘333’. After the introduction of this online platform, citizen can now enjoy the benefits of services available in online platforms and
channels by spending less amount of money, time and effort for getting government information, services, taking consultancy services,
raising complaints and providing feedback. Before introducing this service, there was no central complain system on social problems
which could help to resolve problems so quickly. The ‘333’ a web based ‘Grievance Redress System and Service Application Platform’
has been successfully working to provide all the government information and services to every citizen at anytime from anywhere. The
main motto of this project is to reach to the unreached groups especially who are poor, illiterate, marginalized, and vulnerable and who
have no access to internet, commuter technology, electricity and who are far away from the government offices and the legal support
services. Thus, this initiative of ICT Ministry under a2i authority stipulated a way to reach mass population through a voice call platform
‘333’. People who have access to mobile (Bangladesh has 90% mobile penetration) or even who have no access to personal mobile
can call from any other mobile number or landline. Any person from anywhere at any time of the country can call 333 and get desired
services. It is a joint Initiative of Bangladesh Govt., RobiAxiata Limited BDcom online Ltd and Genex. This 24×7 ‘333’ Call Centre has
dramatically improved the whole ecosystem of e-governance in terms of providing information and services and redressing grievance
of all types of citizens regardless of location, literacy and accessibility.