1. THE QUALITY OF CIVIC DATA IN INDIA AND THE
IMPLICATIONS ON THE PUSH FOR OPEN DATA
Satyarupa Shekhar
April 25,2013

2. National context
• National Data Sharing & Accessibility Policy
• Open Government Platform
▫ Open source platform for governments
• Data Portal India
▫ Indian government’s open data portal

3. Governance issues at hand
• Slew of urban reforms
▫ Data driven planning
▫ GIS databases for infrastructure and services
▫ Data and maps for identifying the poor
• ‘Smart’ cities using ICT for planning
▫ Boston, San Francisco, Barcelona
▫ Indian cities feeling the pressure but…

4. Local context - Chennai
• Where is the data?
▫ Data for planning and monitoring is missing
▫ Data is stored poorly
▫ Data is not shared between departments
▫ Data is not in formats that are easy to analyse
▫ Data is not granular
▫ Data fails to account for the informal sector
Demand for open data has to go hand-in-hand with
improvements in quality of data

5. Project objectives
Develop a policy and advocacy platform around
open data that responds to the local context, and
accounts for the quality of municipal data.
• Three kinds of municipal data
▫ public toilets and sanitation
▫ water and sewerage
▫ public health.

6. Project objectives (2)
• The project will document
▫ amount of data collected
▫ way it is collected by government agencies and
departments
▫ how the data is used in planning and policymaking
▫ the availability of data to the public
▫ the accuracy of the data
▫ the implications of poor data quality on residents

7. Research methods
• Stock-taking of existing data
▫ what data is collected
▫ by whom
▫ where is it stored
▫ how easily is it shared
• Understanding the processes
▫ how is it collected
▫ how is it used for policy-making

8. Research methods (2)
• Evaluating data quality
▫ does it reflect conditions on the ground
▫ can the gap be quantified or estimated
• Understanding real-world impacts
▫ implications of poor data quality on government
performance
▫ impacts of the inaccuracies of this data on local
communities

9. Research methods (3)
• Developing a response
▫ what kinds of changes in the data collection
process would make the data much more accurate
▫ are there examples where residents or city
employees have successfully worked to bring to
light, supplement, or correct erroneous data

10. Work so far…
• Establishing relations with key officials
• Obtaining authorisation to access data
• Interviewing officials
▫ Understanding the formal and informal rules by
which they are bound
• NOT filing RTI requests
▫ We do not what exists, so what to ask for?