The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has published a draft policy to ensure that citizens and companies and other organs of the government can access more public data. With greater digital transactions by citizens, larger and larger amounts of data is being generated and the aim of this draft policy is to ensure that ministries make this data available by default, and only a small negative list of data is shielded if needed.T

The hope is this will ensure governments make better policy and corporations can plan their businesses better. The draft policy lays out a detailed bureaucracy as well. There shall be an India Data Office (IDO) located in the ministry of IT and each ministry shall have a chief data officer who shall ensure that all data is made available in the format decided by the IDO. The draft also envisages an India Data Council, which will work across ministries to coordinate as well as provide technical support.

Read Here: Explained: India plans to monetise public data. What is the draft data policy all about?

Unprocessed data will be available for free, but value-added data may be charged.

Now, does all this usher in a new regime where we will have more information about our own economy, rather than just a bland GDP or IIP number? Are there privacy issues yet to be sorted out and what can be the other hurdles in the path of this enhanced data sharing by the government?

To discuss this, CNBC-TV18’s Latha Venkatesh spoke to Dr Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India and former chairman of the statistics commission; PC Mohanan, a former member of the Statistics Commission and an eminent statistician; and Dr Janmejaya Sinha, the Head of Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

For full interview, watch accompanying video.

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First Published:Feb 23, 2022 7:05 PM IST