Pain points in e-Governance – 9 : Noncompliance to Data Standards

Every department has adopted e-Governance to create easiness for citizens. Since applications are domain-specific, each department develops its application with the help of the government of private vendors. Since the department works in silos, many times they are forced to collect repeated information. Since applications are designed in different techniques using different standards, it will be difficult to establish a connection between the two. 

 The government of India has published a list of standards (https://www.meity.gov.in/content/standards-policies). Many departments have failed to comply with these standards. As a result, we end up in keep on asking same information repeatedly from an individual in every department, in a different format, at various locations and for different purposes. And also there will be huge pressure on infrastructure to maintain these multiple data, adding additional costs to the government. 

  Following standards are to be considered while developing an application for government, 

 (i) Technology Standards for Interoperability Framework for E-Governance 

(ii) Metadata and Data Standards 

(iii) Bio-metric Standards for: 

  1. Face Image
  2. Fingerprint Image and Minutia 
  3. Iris Image 

(iv) Font Standard for Indian Languages 

(v) Character Encoding Standard 

  One of the main reasons for the non-adoption of standards are 

  1. Short timeline to complete the project
  2. Repeated scope change
  3. Non-awareness of standards to be used. 

 It is difficult to expect every department to be aware of standards. Instead, a nodal agency in government wets every application design before development, the interoperability will be a cakewalk. 

The big question is will it happen, considering Senior officers opinion in government which often takes priority over standards.  

Disclaimer: Purely Personal Opinion. 

 

 


 

 

Comments

  1. ADM - nistratorAugust 9, 2021 at 10:41 AM

    Sir, Why can't the State Govt have a Single Vendor who can provide the Database Management Solution to all the Dept.s. He can tweak the DBMS to the requirements of the Dept. And also the vendor will have the log of DBs / IT Systems / Type of Data maintained in every Dept. Each Dept spends Crores to get an IT System of its own, which in a Nutshell is nothing but A DBMS. Whereas if GoK can have it's inhouse DBMS engineers or a Tech Giant which can handle DBMS operations of all the Dept. it can save crores of rupees for the state exchequer as well as enable the free flow of data between the dept. And it will have no room for not following MDDS Standards.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Prabhakar HLAugust 24, 2021 at 3:46 PM

      I agree with you, there should be one nodal officer to look in to these issues.

      Delete
  2. DRAugust 9, 2021 at 5:13 PM

    A more important issue to address is the data entry point of respective departments. Usually the data entry associates are incompetent and under-qualified causing issues in data and creating anomalies. Appointment of educated and well paid operators at the entry point will reduce the burden of data discrepancies and inconsistencies.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Prabhakar HLAugust 24, 2021 at 3:46 PM

      And there should be validation at data entry points as per standards.

      Delete
  3. VargheseAugust 9, 2021 at 6:48 PM

    Since I don't know much about e governance software's, but one thing I know that you are trying hard to ease the work. All the best go ahead

    ReplyDelete
  4. GirijaAugust 10, 2021 at 9:49 AM

    Only way is to make mandatory for all depts to get their softwares developed and maintained by egov with all servers in SDC.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Krishnaveni MothaAugust 10, 2021 at 2:00 PM

    Good information.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousAugust 10, 2021 at 6:59 PM

    Efforts have been made to improve the delivery of public services and simplify the process of accesing thing...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Suneel ChhabraAugust 10, 2021 at 9:36 PM

    Agree that data standards need tobe defined and followed. Also comon datasets should be used in applications

    ReplyDelete
  8. AfshanAugust 12, 2021 at 12:06 PM

    A much needed awareness to both government and technical partner team prior to the designing phase of a project. It helps avoid all the fundamental loop holes which are difficult to resolve once a project is up and running. May be government should look at these building a platform rather than siloed projects.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Kiran AMarch 16, 2022 at 9:58 PM

    Everyone should aware of the standards policies, inturn to be incorporated in every stage of implementation of the project. Useful info.

    ReplyDelete

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