The chief of India’s apex autonomous body on statistics on Sunday underlined the imperative need to harmonise the collection and dissemination of data by various government departments to make policy decisions more informed and “efficient”, stressing that it was tough to correlate economic data such as indirect tax collections and export-import figures in the current system.
“There are so many entities in the national as well as State governments that are collecting and using data in their own way,” National Statistical Commission chairman Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar observed. “Some of it is made available to public, some is not. Even when made available to public, the data doesn’t talk to each other,” he added.
“I am not talking in terms of a text file versus PDF, but in terms of the way a table is made, or let’s say, the code,” he said. Citing the example of Goods and Services Tax (GST) numbers and foreign trade data, he said they used different codes. “Therefore, if you want to do some analysis which involves both these data, it is very difficult to put it together and make some coherent decision based on that,” he explained.
Mr. Karandikar emphasised the need of “interoperability and linking of databases generated by various agencies” at an event to mark Statistics Day, in honour of the birth anniversary of Prasanta Chandra Mahalonobis, widely regarded as the Father of Indian Statistics.
Unless data from departments were organised in a way that they could “talk to each other”, it was of limited value for nationwide decision making, the NSC chief stressed.
“The decision is not just going to be based only on the GST data, you have to merge it with various other things, and only then that will be useful,” he noted.
“Our goal is to make efficient decisions for the large masses and we can use all that is happening in the best possible way. We can talk to others in the government and try to come up with this plan of integrating various datasets so that it can be best used,” Mr. Karandikar said, suggesting that such harmonisation could begin with Central government departments and then the States could be brought on board.
Subsequently, those collecting data or storing available data generated through transactions, such as banks could also be roped in.
Conceding people’s concerns about privacy issues with such data, the NSC chief said thought needed to be given as to what part of the data could be released “at least to decision-makers”.
“There is a strong need to create for the central government perhaps to create an expert group that involves all stakeholders, which will look at these issues and try to come out with common codes and ways of data collection and dissemination, so that the best use of data can be made in times to come,” he underlined.
