In May 2022, The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) released the Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy (NDGFP) for public consultation. In a piece for Moneycontrol, Harsh Vardhan Pachisia and Sharmadha Srinivasan, Senior Associates at Artha Global, argue that the issues observed in the older draft versions are still evident in the new Indian national data policy. 

Excerpts below:

“First, given past experience, the institutional design framework still needs to address issues of capacity and incentives that have been a major bottleneck in earlier efforts to open government data. Second, greater regulatory clarity is needed on how the current policy would work in tandem with past and existing policies.”

“Regulatory clarity is essential — both for clearly demarcating the jurisdictions of different regulatory authorities and for synchronising the data accessibility guidelines with other relevant regulations.”

Read the article here.