Open Government Data Policy and Indian Ecosystems

Abstract

In a developing country like India, with complex issues at hand evidence-based Planning of socio-economic development processes must rely on quality data. As quality data is not easily accessible, there is a general need to facilitate sharing and utilization of the large amount of data generated by Ministries/Departments/Organizations/ States of India in an open format exposing them for further value addition to enable effective governance and enhanced public service delivery. Over the last decade or so the idea of open data in correlation with the idea of open government data has gained a lot of prominence and limelight, courtesy the continuous effort of the citizen groups demanding a more transparent and accountable governance. Recognizing the importance of availability of open data to its citizen for increased levels of transparency and accountability and to promote higher level of public participation the Government of India under the aegis of National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) initiated Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India to share government data with its citizens. This has built a foundation to create an open data ecosystem in the country. NDSAP was gazette notified on 17th March 2012 mandating the government entities to proactively release their datasets in Open Format. According to the preamble of NDSAP, there has been an increasing demand by the community that data collected with the deployment of public funds should be made more readily available to all, for enabling rational debate, better decision making and use in meeting civil society needs. Implementation of NDSAP through OGD Platform since its Alpha release in 2012 has been increasing the usability and relevance of open government data and sustaining the ecosystem around it. In this paper we are trying to analyze the policy implementation strategy and how that has created a sustainable open government data ecosystem in various sectors.