Statistics ministry seeks streamlining of data across depts, states

New Delhi: The statistics ministry is eyeing harmonisation of government data across various ministries and departments as it looks to expand public access through a mobile app, a government official said

"We are providing the ministries with standardisation, structures, classification and quality assessment tools to be used so that it is harmonised," the official said. "What we want is that no user should say 'there is a data vacuum'."

While the statistics ministry will not build a centralised database, it aims to pull data from each ministry and state government portals through application programming interface (API), the official explained.


The big focus of the ministry is on strengthening data availability at the state level, the official said. "We are guiding states on what surveys to conduct, what indicators to take; we are looking at capacity building."

The ministry is currently revising the base years for key indicators: gross domestic product (to 2022-23 from 2011-12), Consumer Price Index (2024 from 2012) and Index of Industrial Production (2022-23 from 2011-12).

It is also using AI to improve access to data with its website now featuring an AI assistant that answers queries on its reports, publications and content.

"Everyone is talking about AI but we need to see where it can help, especially as a search engine. If we use it for official data, then it must draw only from verified sources," the official said.