Data Governance for Enhanced Welfare Delivery
Context: Indian states, responsible for 60% of public expenditure, are increasingly relying on data to improve the delivery of subsidies, social protection, and public services.
What is Data Governance and Why It Matters for India
Data Governance in India refers to the framework that ensures government data is secure, accurate, accessible, interoperable, and responsibly managed throughout its lifecycle. In the era of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), strong data governance is the backbone of effective, transparent, and citizen-centric governance.
It encompasses
- Data management, which defines how data is collected, stored, classified, and shared across departments;
- Data quality, ensuring accuracy, completeness, and reliability for policymaking; and
- Data privacy and protection, safeguarding citizen data in line with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and ethical principles. It also includes
- Data interoperability through standards such as APIs that allow seamless communication between government IT systems, and
- Data stewardship, which clearly assigns responsibility for maintaining and overseeing data assets.
How Data Governance Enables Effective Governance
Robust data governance in India directly translates into better public service delivery. By creating reliable beneficiary databases and enabling data sharing across welfare schemes.
It ensures
- Precision in welfare delivery, reducing duplication, leakages, and fraud. This shift from “scale to precision” helps benefits reach the truly eligible.
- Data-driven systems enhance accountability and transparency, making service delivery measurable and strengthening the Right to Public Services by holding officials accountable.
- High-quality, integrated datasets support evidence-based policymaking, improving policy design, targeting, and evaluation while optimising public expenditure.
Strong data governance also promotes inclusive development by reducing digital exclusion and enabling welfare portability for migrants and vulnerable populations. At the same time, a clear governance framework fosters trust, encouraging innovation and partnerships with the private sector and civil society, as seen in platforms like UPI and Agristack.
Measures Taken to Strengthen Data Governance in India
Multiple measures are being undertaken at both state and national levels:
-
- Legislative & Policy Frameworks: Enactment of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 provides the overarching legal framework for responsible data use.
- States like Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Assam have notified holistic state data policies, with Odisha drafting one.
- Institutional & Technological Initiatives: Right to Public Services Acts in 22 states/UTs provide the foundational accountability framework for service delivery.
- Adoption of API-based, modular approaches and open standards to ensure interoperability (e.g., Maharashtra’s MahaVISTAAR, Telangana’s Agricultural Data Exchange – ADEX).
- Efforts to create integrated beneficiary platforms (e.g., Kutumba, Parivar Pehchan) that link data across departments.
- Capacity Building & Standards: NITI Aayog’s tools, like the Data Quality Scorecard and Maturity Framework, guide states in assessing and improving their data systems.
- The push for creating data inventories/catalogues to map existing data assets, their quality, and utility.
- Embracing the “build once, use many times” philosophy and learning from cross-state experiences in data exchange.
- Promoting Ecosystem Partnerships: Encouraging a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) approach, similar to UPI and GSTN, where the state sets the governance rules and enables private sector innovation.
- Exploring mechanisms like regulatory sandboxes for testing new data-driven services while safeguarding citizen rights.
- Family-centric: Initiatives like Karnataka’s “Kutumba” and Haryana’s “Parivar Pehchan” aim to create integrated, family-centric platforms for service delivery.
- Legislative & Policy Frameworks: Enactment of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 provides the overarching legal framework for responsible data use.
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The Source’s Authority and Ownership of the Article is Claimed By THE STUDY IAS BY MANIKANT SINGH
