Govt plans to introduce 'corporate data management' scheme

The government plans to come out with a Corporate Data Management scheme to ensure wider dissemination of company information for benefit of investors, regulators and other stakeholders in user-friendly formats.

The proposal, being initiated by the Corporate Affairs Ministry, could also help to usher in "more objectivity and transparency in reporting by the corporates".

The Ministry expects to launch 'Corporate Data Management' project as a central sector Plan scheme in the current financial year.

"It is proposed to implement the project on a pilot basis covering only listed public limited companies (about 7,000 in number) during the remaining three years of the 12th Plan (pilot phase)," according to a communication from the Ministry.

Overall cost of the project, spread over three years, is estimated to be Rs 33.94 crore.

The Ministry is the repository of data related to every entity registered under the Companies Act as well as under the Limited Liability Partnership Act.

However, at present, level of information dissemination by the Ministry is limited to various stakeholders, including credit rating agencies, business analyst and research organisations.

"The purpose of the Plan scheme is to ensure wider dissemination of corporate sector data to public in a proactive manner, after processing and converting the raw data into user-friendly formats that are amenable for further analysis," the communication said.

The draft memorandum for the Standing Finance Committee for the scheme has already been circulated to concerned ministries and departments for their comments.

According to the Ministry, the scheme would look at removing inaccuracies in the raw data provided by companies.

"Data cleaning is the critical process of detecting, correcting/removing inaccurate information from the database. Data cleaning would involve activities such as identification of correct economic activity, rectification of misreported company finance data and estimating/collecting missing data for each company," the communication said.

One of the scheme's objective is sharing of privileged information, after cleaning of data, for use by the Ministry and other regulatory bodies for regulatory purposes.

All listed companies (about 7,000) would be covered for data cleaning and data mining in the pilot stage.

"It is contemplated to cover all companies' (about 9 lakh working companies) data and data from LLPs in the next Five Year Plan," it noted.

The Ministry has also said successful implementation of the pilot project would prove "very useful in formulating suitable policies for corporates' contribution to economic growth".