Event Data.Gov.in

An event on “Release of Compendium & Round Table Discussion to Reach 50,000 Datasets” was organized by Open Government Data (OGD) Division, National Informatics Centre (NIC) on 8th July 2016 in India Habitat Centre. This was held for focused sectors like viz. Health, Census, Crime, Transport, Finance, Environment, Agriculture, and Rajya Sabha.

Primary objectives of the event was:

1. To emphasize on releasing open data by default through API/Web services from all Digital India initiatives systems
2. To make strategy to achieve 50K open datasets on OGD Platform by Dec 2016
3. To release a compendium on case studies presented w.r.t “Data Driven Decision Making” – a theme of the previous workshop held for Chief Data Officers (CDOs) to explore new insights to the decision makers, and;
4. To plan for conducting Hackathon/Apps Challenge based on datasets and problem statements of few selected sectors

Event was attended by more than 50 participants including Chief Data Officers (CDOs) and Data Contributors from Ministries/Departments of few selected sectors viz. Health, Census, Crime, Transport, etc. as well as contributors to the compendium and OGD team members. Compendium was released by DG, NIC as well as Contributors to the Compendium.

Following are the outcomes of event:

1. Discussion session with representatives from selected Ministry/Departments was held to identify the areas/initiatives from where potential open datasets could be published. Though all representatives committed to work towards release open datasets but some tangible commitments are:
   1. Registrar General of India (RGI) agreed to release datasets related to Census, Civil Registration System (CRS) and Sample Random Sampling (SRS).
   2. Road Transport committed to share more datasets pertaining to traffic, accidents, black spot locations etc. CDO, Road Transport would help us connect with NHAI to release datasets on toll plazas.
   3. National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW) agreed to provide more detailed hospital directory including GPS locations; blood bank directory, real time data on availability of bed. Details of mobile apps on health information would also be shared on data.gov.in.
   4. Department of Health and Family Welfare, committed to share more data on HMIS, DLHS, NFHS, etc. and would publish their Apps on OGD Platform.
   5. Central Pollution Control Board Representative would share more real time data pertaining to Air Quality. Water Quality, Noise pollution etc.
   6. Rajya Sabha CDO would share data of various sessions which are available with them.
   7. FCI conveyed its willingness to share datasets through web-services. They have developed web-services and would start publishing soon.
   8. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) would share in due course of time the data on Crime, Prisons, Police Stations, Vahan Samnvaya, and Finger Print etc.
   9. Data of fund utilization and grants of Member of Parliament (MPs) would be sought from MPLADS, MOSPI.

Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC), delivered the keynote address and outlined the benefits of Open Government Data, usefulness for citizens, enhancement of transparency in Governance, etc. She also reiterated the benefits of data driven decision making instead of perception or hunch based decision making. Data provided on OGD Platform can support research and value addition, enabling the government to make informed decisions. It is useful not only for the citizens/researchers; but also, for other departments by culling the requisite data belonging to another department from Open Government Data Platform.

Further, she highlighted the need for sustaining the momentum and stressed the need for system generated datasets which are open by default. She emphasized that a Hackathon be organized in the immediate future.

The event concluded on a very positive note and with unequivocal commitments from various participants, particularly the Chief Data Officers and Contributors from focused Ministries and Departments, to achieve the target of publishing of 50K Datasets on Open Government Data Platform, India.

Click here for the soft copy of the released Compendium.

Release of Compendium
(Case studies presented on ‘Data Driven Decision Making: Sectoral Perspective’ Workshop)
&
Round Table Discussion for publishing of 50K Datasets

Date: 8th July 2016, Venue: Tamarind Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi