Key Points
Policy enables seamless integration of datasets across departments reducing administrative burden
Chief Secretary-led Governing Committee will oversee implementation as apex decision-making body
Aligns with World Bank-supported MahaSTRIDE program to strengthen institutional capabilities
Digital collection through DBT and Aadhaar-linked programs will replace manual data gathering
The policy seeks to minimise duplication of data, provide interoperability among departments and ensure governance structures for value addition in data services. This will enable seamless integration of datasets across departments, support comprehensive data analytics, reduce costs and promote useful data access to the public.
The government hopes that the policy will serve as a backbone to produce high quality good governance indicators to improve the quality of governance across the state's various districts on delivery of public services, implementation of government schemes, transparency and efficiency in administration.
According to the government release, the policy will be applicable to all the data and information created, generated and achieved by the state government directly or through authorised agencies by various departments, organisations and agencies. It would also include data from all private entities that have a legal and other mandate to share or provide data.
The policy proposes to exploit the potential of data fully mainly to implement administrative processes more effectively and transparently. It also ensures uniformity in the use of data and its sharing among various departments.
"High quality of data shall help ensure improved usability and data driven decision making by the government as well as any other external uses of the data. Therefore, every department should keep in mind that for each database and its catlog and metadata should be prepared and contributed to a predefined format for the Catalogues and Resources Datasets," read the policy.
The chief secretary led Governing Committee would operate as an apex body and it would be responsible for the policy and government level decisions.
This policy has ensured uniformity in the use of this information and easy sharing of this base available in various departments for public use. This will help reduce the burden of the civil service employees, anganwadi workers and agricultural assistants working in rural areas of collecting statistical information data from time to time. The information will now be collected digitally through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system and Aadhaar linked programmes.
The data policy will be implemented in accordance with the MahaSTRIDE programme launched with the help of the World Bank. It proposes to strengthen institutional capabilities in districts for enabling growth.The Project objective of MahaSTRIDE is to strengthen institutional capabilities, services, and the data ecosystem for enabling inclusive economic growth in districts.
