Priyanka Tiwari
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The government possesses a multitude of datasets and blends of data, and the biggest challenge they face is making it publically available, says Saurabh Garg, secretary of the statistics and program implementation ministry.
Garg articulated on March 20, “We need to be able to integrate survey, alternate, and administrative data in a statistically robust manner,” at the session on the use of alternative data sets offered by the ministry.
According to Garg, the government holds 200 datasets pertaining to administrative figures, but the challenge is ensuring privacy and anonymity while also making the data public accessible.
“We have a set of data available, but access is an issue. We need to clearly specify what data we can make accessible while taking into consideration anonymisation and privacy,” Garg elaborated.
The ministry has established national metadata standards in the last few months to create clear guidelines for data capturing and to provide a set quality check for the other ministries that compile the data.
Moreover, the ministry has introduced standardised common identifiers designed to enable different systems to work together without further arrangements.
“We have created several common identifiers which can be used by various ministries and departments to facilitate reconciliation of GST and road toll data and potentially derive GDP data,” Garg said.
In addition to personal identifiers, the ministry is working to develop spatial identifiers like satellite imagery alongside GST data and identifiers.
"Decision-making processes will be improved using one of these identifiers," Garg said, mentioning smart meter data that can be used to determine electricity consumption.
“We can craft a framework on how to provide data that is deemed private by the people by establishing a legal framework which permits the use of such data for service delivery,” said Kris Gopalakrishnan co-founder, Infosys and Chairman, Expert Committee on Non-Personal Data Governance Framework of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
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