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Informist, Tuesday, Jun. 24, 2025

 

NEW DELHI – The government is expanding data and strategy units, earlier limited to some ministries, to provide support for data analysis, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation Secretary Saurabh Garg Tuesday said.

 

"There is a structure, which has been in position in some ministries, which is now being expanded," Garg said at an event in the national capital. "A kind of a data and strategy unit which has people who can do the statistical data collection part, analysis part, who have the technology and data analytics background and so that they become a kind of a support to each of these ministries."

 

Garg was speaking at the launch of a NITI Aayog report on "India's Data Imperative: The Pivot Towards Quality". According to the report, as India moves from scale to precision, data quality must become a national priority.

 

Garg said India is reaching 100% saturation in terms of digital payments and digital public infrastructure. The next frontier, he said, is data quality. The statistics ministry has also been focusing on data quality and held meetings with 30 ministries last week on the subject, he said.

 

"We are focusing a lot more on administrative data, which is generated by each ministry from various programmes and schemes," the statistics secretary said. "That data can really help if we are able to ensure that it is interoperable, it is harmonised, in the sense that it follows certain basic structures similarly, so that citizens' delivery of services improves. In fact, that is ultimately the objective."

 

Garg said the ministry has brought out a compendium of data sets across 40 ministries with around 270 data sets, which can be made useful for improved service delivery. The statistics ministry has also rolled out a national metadata standard to improve discoverability of data, he said.

 

"These are some building blocks that we are also working towards with the objective of having much much better data quality and systems," Garg said. "We have reached a stage where data is available, data expansion has been done, and now we need to go to the next level of ensuring the fidelity and quality of data."  End

 

Reported by Shubham Rana

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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