Giving data its due: National Data and Analytics Platform (NDAP)

GS Paper 2

Source: IE

 Context: The government of India is drawing up a data ecosystem (through NDAP) thus enabling policy-makers and researchers to exploit the potential of public data

About National Data & Analytics Platform (NDAP) (NDAP):

The National Data & Analytics Platform (NDAP) was launched in 2022 by NITI Aayog in collaboration with different ministries and state governments in India.

• NDAP aims to democratize access to public government data by making it accessible, interoperable, interactive, and available on a user-friendly platform for various stakeholders such as policymakers, civil servants, university students and researchers, journalists, innovators, and civil society groups.
• It has been part of the State Support Mission of NITI Aayog

Current Issues:

• Lack of uniformity in data format and no interoperability: The need to bring NDAP arose because public data in India was difficult to use, and users couldn’t compare data from different departments or data gathered over time due to differences in format and quality.
• Implications of rising digital Technologies: The rise of data and digital technologies is rapidly transforming economies and societies, with enormous implications for governments’ daily operations.

How NDAP solves these issues?

NDAP solves these issues by providing a user-friendly platform that presents standardized datasets from central and state government entities and provides tools for analytics and visualization. 

For example, A state-level civil servant building new primary health centres can easily find and integrate three public datasets:

• Health department’s Management Information System (MIS): List of communities with existing PHCs
• Economic Census from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI): To get a list of communities with private health facilities
• The Population Census from the Registrar General of India (RGI): To prioritize villages based on size

With NDAP, the decision-maker can access the data from all three sources seamlessly linked into a single dataset, saving time and effort. NDAP can leverage data to strengthen good governance by making it easier to access and analyze public data. 

Significance of NDAP

• Enables linking and use of several types of data at once.
• The standardized dataset enables merging and cross-sectoral analysis.
• Simplifies the data for it to be used by the government, academia, journalism, civil society, and the private sector
• Customizes data as per the need: Users can create flexible tables and visualizations
• Quality benchmark datasets: Data shown has to meet NDAP’s in-house 5-star rating framework.
• Enables data-driven governance and programme outcomes for the common public 

To know about Data gathering by public agencies: Click here 

Other efforts:

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s policy around open data
• The Open Government Data (OGD) PlatformIndia (by National Informatics Centre (NIC))
• National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) 2012: To provide proactive access to government-owned shareable data along with its usage information.
• India currently houses more than 1.6 lakh data resourcesand has published over 4,015 application programme interfaces (APIs) from across 100-plus departments. 

To know about Open Data Government: Click here 

Conclusion

NDAP was developed in the spirit of cooperative federalism, ensuring that all states are equal partners in the journey of becoming champions of data-driven policymaking. NDAP has now been included in the curriculum of officer trainees at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie. It will enable incoming government officers to develop a data-driven decision-making mindset from their first field job. Overall, NDAP has the potential to be an open data platform that can play a vital role in facilitating data-driven governance in India.

Insta Links:

• Reliable Public data
• Data Protection Bill

Mains Links 

What is the CyberDome Project? Explain how it can be useful in controlling internet crimes in India. (UPSC 2019)

Prelims Links