Gewog Community Centres (CCs)

Bhutan's rural sub-districts (gewogs) faced limited access to community and government services; the Ministry of Information and Communications launched Community Centres in 2009 to extend connectivity built under the ADB-supported SASEC Village Network component to the local level, aiming for one centre per gewog across the country's 205 gewogs.

Provide community-to-citizen services (photocopying, scanning, printing, computer courses) and government-to-citizen services (civil registration, forest permits, employment applications) through a nationwide network of local centres operated by the Bhutan Postal Corporation.

Centres were established across gewogs and connected to broadband where feasible, with operations run by the Postal Corporation, though authority over the centres was disputed between gewog administrations and the postal service; in 2025 the government launched a parallel, India-funded Integrated Service and Contact Centre programme offering more services from more agencies.

By reporting date, 182 of the planned 205 centres had been established and 130 were connected via broadband; however, 2014 field reporting from Trashigang found many centres non-functional, under-equipped or unconnected, and Paro Dzongkhag recorded only 3 to 15 visits per centre daily, indicating low utilisation.

The documentation portrays a large but only partially functional rural access network, illustrating typical telecentre sustainability challenges, without a rigorous independent impact evaluation to confirm effectiveness.