Prasad for closer synergy among depts on data; advocates use of anonymised data

IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday called for closer synergy among government departments on data, which when anonymised and analysed can provide technological breakthroughs to address various problems faced by the country.

"Now, is the stage of data. Data analysis, data analytics and, most importantly, new skilling. This is our next challenge," Prasad said at an event to facilitate the winners of #OpenGovDataHack national challenge.

Stating that India is among a handful of countries that have open data (ecosystem), he said, adding that the new and innovative products leveraging data could be useful for multiple sectors like healthcare, education, agriculture and transportation.

"I would like a larger synergy between my department and other departments of Government of India dealing with data," Prasad said, adding that perception by a few that data should be locked up, is not correct.

"All the government departments are custodians of data on behalf of people of India. It should not be a personal property but it should be anonymised data," the minister said.

He urged the tech community to use such "anonymised data" find solutions to problems facing the country.

"I give you a challenge that if you see a particular kind of illness among children in a particular area of the country, you should leverage the anonymised data and find solutions.

"When you have so many different problems in the country, it is our duty as men of technology that we find solutions to it," Prasad said.

India, said the minister, should be a powerhouse in data analysis and the country's innovative spirit should become a mass movement.

He asked the IT community reach out to the deserving and underprivileged sections and make them digitally literate. This, he said, would help the government in achieving the goal of transforming India to a digital society and push benefits of government services and initiatives to all sections of the society.

He said the government has provided two lakh data-sets on open data platform to offer an opportunity for innovation to all.

Prasad said government does not encourage data to be available for privileged few and that mass digital involvement would yield offer better and speedier results.

Open Government Data (OGD) Platform is aimed at promoting innovation in open data ecosystem in India. It has been set-up by National Informatics Centre (NIC) in compliance with the 'open data policy' whose objective is to provide a platform for proactive access to government-owned shareable data. These datasets are directly published on the platform by the government departments, an official release said.