National Policy on Dissemination of Statistical Data
The Government of India has announced a comprehensive national policy
on dissemination of statistical data and specific guidelines for releasing data on May 3,
1999.
The details of the Policy are:
Dissemination of official statistics in the form of reports, ad-hoc and regular
publications etc. by the Central Ministries / Departments / Agencies as at present shall
continue. Validated data, though published, including unit / household / establishment
level data after deleting their identification particulars to maintain confidentiality
should also be made available to the national and international data users in the form of
hard copies and on magnetic media on payment basis;
No data, which are considered by the concerned official in data source agency to be of
sensitive nature and the supply of, which may be prejudicial to the interest, integrity,
and security of the nation, should be supplied. The Central Government, or a State
Government or the concerned Government agency, as the case may be, shall exercise its
overriding prerogative to decide the degree of sensitivity of the official statistics
produced by it. The data source agency will reserve the right on whether to withhold its
release altogether or to release selectively.
Price of data to be supplied under (i) above should include the cost of stationery,
computer consumables and computer time for sorting information. However, cost of
collection and validation of data will not be charged. Postal charges are to be included
along with cost of data supplied.
Price may be fixed in Indian currency as well as in Sterling Pound and American Dollar.
Foreign currency prices may be determined using relevant official multiplier fixed from
time to time for printed Government publications;
Survey results/data should be made available to the data users in India and abroad
simultaneously after the expiry of three years from the completion of the field work or
after the reports based on survey data are released, whichever is earlier;
Data users will give an undertaking in the prescribed form to the effect, inter alia,
that the official statistics obtained by him for his own declared use will not be passed
on with or without profit to any other data user or disseminator of data with or without
commercial purpose;
Data users will have to acknowledge the data sources in their research work based on
official statistics. One copy of the research study along with short summary of
conclusions, if required by the concerned data source agency, should be supplied in the
form of hard copy or on electronic media, free of cost; and
The Department of Statistics will be the nodal agency for dissemination of official
statistics provided by Central Government Ministries and Departments. However, the
concerned subject matter Ministries and Departments of the Central Government will be the
final authority on issues arising out of this policy with a view to resolving any dispute
between a data user and a data source agency.
The guidelines for the release of the data are:
A data warehouse in the Department of Statistics will be created to enable the data
users and general public to have easy access to the published as well as unpublished
validated data from one source.
The data warehouse will collect data from various source agencies, integrate the data
into logical subject areas, store the data in a manner that is accessible and
understandable to non-technical decision makers and deliver data/information to decision
makers through report writing and query tools
As data source agencies are generating data at various levels, the responsibilities of
data supply and receipt will be shared between the respective Central Ministries/
Departments/ Agencies and the Department of Statistics by establishing and maintaining
close collaboration
For each data type and source, detailed studies will be undertaken by the Department of
Statistics in co-operation with the concerned data source agency on
(a)
the concepts, definitions, classifications and methods used in data
collection and processing including
validation,
(b) formats of data collection,
(c) media on which data will be supplied,
(d) frequency of supply of data and
(e) procedures and modalities for preservation,
updation and dissemination of data.
The volume of data flowing from each source agency into the data warehouse will be
assessed by the Department of Statistics in order to formulate the various parameters
required for designing, establishing and maintaining a data warehouse.
Each data source agency will be required to adopt for itself a calendar for preparation
and release of data which it will share with the Department of Statistics. As part of its
nodal responsibility of dissemination of data from the source, the Department of
Statistics will keep track of the data release calendar of each source agency.
The data source agency will be required to supply on computer compatible media,
validated data, published or unpublished free of cost to the data warehouse.
The Department of Statistics will prepare Directories of all available data in the data
warehouse and update the same at frequent intervals. A website will be created for the
data warehouse and Directories will be available on the website.
From the data warehouse, data/information will be made available free of cost to the
data source agencies for official use and also the approved research institutes and
universities for research purposes.
The price of data to be supplied to other users will depend upon system hardware and
software used for data storage, retrieval etc. and also on medium of supply of data.
