Take to tech for quality data, Niti Aayog tells ministries

New Delhi: Niti Aayog has asked all ministries and departments to boost data quality by harnessing technology and minimising human intervention, urging them to build data pipelines that avoid duplication.

These recommendations are part of the road map the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office, an attached office of the Aayog, has laid down to help ministries achieve the highest score of 5 on the Data Governance Quality Index (DGQI).

"A ministry or department should be able to identify its specific data requirements in order to exhaustively capture data on its inputs, outputs and outcomes at different levels - schemes, ministry or sector level, and Sustainable Development

Goals or national priority levels," it said in a circular issued to all ministries.

"Endeavour should be towards quality-at entry by collecting verification checkpoints along with programmatic data using technology with minimal manual intervention," it added.

Reiterating that the upcoming DGQI edition will also include the component of data management, it has directed ministries and departments to put in place the strategy for integrated storage of data and its disposal.

DGQI 5.0 is the frontier score of the Index, a tool used by government ministries and departments to assess and improve their data preparedness and management systems.

Achieving this score means a department has reached the maximum possible quality and is implementing a comprehensive set of data governance practices.

The exercise is aimed at internal reforms, promoting peer learning, and encouraging ministries to achieve a high standard for their data systems.

A May 2025 case study analyzing the evolution of the DGQI framework indicates an increase in the average score for DGQI 2.0 to 3.20 on a 5-point scale. Over one-third of the ministries (26 out of 74) achieved scores between 4 and 5.