Open access to government data on the cards

“The way has been cleared for public access to the data collected by Union government ministries and departments, with official approval being accorded to the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP). Following its recent approval by the Union Cabinet, the policy has been notified and is in the process of being gazetted, said R. Siva Kumar, CEO of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, and head of the Natural Resources Data Management System, Department of Science and Technology. The use of open data as a tool for promoting governmental transparency and efficiency has been gaining ground in some parts of the world. An Open Government Partnership was launched last year by the United States and seven other governments. Forty-three other governments have joined the partnership, which has endorsed an Open Government Declaration, expressing a commitment to better ‘efforts to systematically collect and publish data on government spending and performance for essential public services and activities.’ It acknowledges the ‘right' of citizens to seek information on governmental activities. India has not joined the partnership, but is collaborating with the U.S. in developing an open source version of software for a data portal. The NDSAP states that at least five ‘high value' data sets should be uploaded to a newly created portal, data.gov.in, in three months of the notification of the policy. Uploading of the remaining data sets should be completed within a year. The Department of Science and Technology will co-ordinate the effort and create the portal through the National Informatics Centre. The Department of Information Technology will work out the implementation guidelines, including those related to technology and data standards... However, the Ministries and Departments can draw up, within six months of the notification of the policy, a negative list of data-sets that will not be shared, subject to periodic review by an ‘oversight committee.' The policy envisages three types of access to data: open, registered and restricted. Access to data in the open category will be ‘easy, timely, user-friendly and web-based without any process of registration/authorisation.’ But data in the registered access category will be accessible ‘only through a prescribed process of registration/authorisation by respective departments/organisations’ and available to ‘recognised institutions/organisations/public users, through defined procedures.’ Data categorised as restricted will be made available only ‘through and under authorisation.’ The policy also provides for pricing, with the Ministries and Departments being asked to formulate their norms for data in the registered and restricted access categories within three months of the notification of the policy.”