MeitY’s draft data policy opens govt data for all

The government published the Draft India Data Accessibility and Use policy for public consultation, which asserts that all data collected, created, and saved by government ministries and departments will be open and shareable barring certain exceptions. As India aims to become a US$ 5 trillion digital economy, the ability to leverage the value of data becomes of paramount importance. In line with this, the India Data Accessibility and Use Policy is expected to improve access, quality, and use of data in line with the current and emerging technology demands.

It also prescribes that a regulatory authority called the IDC and an agency, IDO, will supervise the outlining and enforcement of metadata standards. While the IDC will comprise the IDO and data officers of five government departments, the IDO will be constituted by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to update and consolidate data access and the sharing of public data repositories across the government and other stakeholders.

As per the draft policy, stakeholders like start-ups, enterprises, individuals, and researchers will be able to access enriched data through data licensing, sharing, and valuation within the frameworks of data security and privacy. The policy framework states that all central ministries/departments will adopt and publish its domain-specific metadata and data standards. These standards would be compliant with the interoperability structure, policy on open standards, institutional processes for the creation of domain-specific metadata, and other relevant guidelines published on the government’s standards portal. A data-sharing toolkit will be provided to assess and manage risks associated with data sharing and release.