In a data-driven world, the country requires data based policy making for making quality governance decisions. Explain (200 Words)
Refer - The Hindu
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 3 years
KEY POINTS
· The new show in town is the game of data. Running for a while now, it is keeping the audience on edge with its volatile and shifting rules.
· The spur towards evidence-based policy making or evidence-based budgeting by governments points to the amassing of large, granular level data about citizens by States.
· Data-based policymaking or budgeting is meant to facilitate the use of evidence to inform programmatic funding decisions.
· Data-based decisions can redress inter and intra-district inequalities through targeted resource allocations.
· States collect enormous amounts of administrative data. However, these administrative data are often not validated. For example, it is well known that the flow of funds below the block level is often opaque.
· Accurate collection, measurement and interpretation of data are critical for data-based decision making to be successful.
· absence of data in certain domains does not necessarily indicate better governance. During the novel coronavirus pandemic, some States were not testing enough.
· Consequently, the data on COVID-19 positive cases were interpreted to seem that some States, especially in South India, were unable to control COVID-19 cases.
· This requires States to invest heavily in both human and technical infrastructure with built-in quality control measures to ensure an interesting twist to the game of data that is now ongoing.
