During my 8 years of working at Arghyam, I was consistently struck by the feeling that there was no coherence to the data in the water sector. There was no organised body of knowledge - a newcomer could not find out quickly what kinds of data was there and what the data was saying. A lot of data is inaccessible in pdf files or hidden in government departments. The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation has a whole lot of data up on their website, but impossibly opaque for anyone to try to come to grips with. The data there is also highly suspect, like when the Census 2011 came out, they found that there was massive overcounting of toilet coverage. There were a few people at organisations like UNICEF and the Water and
Sanitation Programme (World Bank) who seemed to be somewhat on top of
things, but they were as bad as the government on transparency and they
kept getting transferred anyway. There also does not seem to be an organised body of researchers who are interested to keep on top of this area. When there's a new survey or new source of data coming out (like the census), there is no excitement in the sector to see what it has to say, how it compares to previous surveys and whether the government is on track or not in achieving water and sanitation goals.
Arghyam did some work here, including indiawaterportal.org/data , but for the most part, I think the comments above apply substantively today as they did 8 years back.
Among useful things to do:
- there is a lot that can be done by the ubiquitous engineering colleges in every district of the country. Much of the data of interest can be collected by students.
- there is a lot of verification of government data that can be done to hold government accountable
I suggest that an Institute for Water Data might be a fruitful initiative to start. The Institute could do things like:
- keep indiawaterportal.org/data current and up-to-date
- unearth new data where possible from government departments
- help get researchers the data they need, and help other people who could contribute like data specialists, the data and sector expertise they needed
(The comments above, while applying more to the drinking water and sanitation sector, are also more broadly applicable to water resources. I suspect they're applicable to other development sectors too like health and education)
Arghyam did some work here, including indiawaterportal.org/data , but for the most part, I think the comments above apply substantively today as they did 8 years back.
Among useful things to do:
- there is a lot that can be done by the ubiquitous engineering colleges in every district of the country. Much of the data of interest can be collected by students.
- there is a lot of verification of government data that can be done to hold government accountable
I suggest that an Institute for Water Data might be a fruitful initiative to start. The Institute could do things like:
- keep indiawaterportal.org/data current and up-to-date
- unearth new data where possible from government departments
- help get researchers the data they need, and help other people who could contribute like data specialists, the data and sector expertise they needed
(The comments above, while applying more to the drinking water and sanitation sector, are also more broadly applicable to water resources. I suspect they're applicable to other development sectors too like health and education)
No comments:
Post a Comment