Data collection in India seems to be an exercise in futiity, if we go by government accounts. Sample just two instances - 1. Lakhs of voters deleted from voting lists 2. An RTI application by a Goa-based NGO has revealed that the beneficiaries under MNREGA in Goa include Manohar Parrikar, Yuvraj Singh, Amitabh Bachchan and family, Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar Now, I am not injecting any kind of conspiracy theory into the equation, but still - at a very fundamental level, the way our system goes about collecting, saving and preserving information is evidently flawed. People dont just disappear from voting lists, not entire societies and buildings and colonies. And it is unacceptable that such names should pop into the MNREGA scheme lists. I wonder if we can have a robust information audit of all such data across the country - after all, such data cleaning exercises are regularly undertaken at private firms, where their databases are a goldmine. Then why do we think it is okay to let go of our governance systems so easily? What we do end up finding may not be what we want to see or hear, but at least we wont be in the dark any more.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 03:27:02 +0000
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