How Data Can Empower MPs to People Better
Context:
- According to democratically elected Members of Parliament (MPs), who are in charge of enacting effective policies to address the needs and aspirations of their constituents, parliamentary constituencies (PCs) in India play a dual function as geographic and administrative policy units.
- To effectively engage with their constituents, MPs must comprehend and prioritise the topics that have the most local effects. There are currently no timely and accessible data on critical elements of population health and socioeconomic well-being at the PC level.
About the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDAP):
- The Government of India (GOI) has introduced the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDAP), which intends to improve access to a variety of data from active GOI programmes relating to population health and well-being.
- In recent years, district-level data have become an essential part of policy discussions, whether they come from GOI administrative data or independent surveys like the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS).
- Making more district-level data or data that allows for district-level aggregation available does not solve the problem of the PC having the same data.
- This is because India’s 750+ district boundaries and 543 PCs do not directly correspond to one another.
- A number of PCs may wholly or partially intersect a district. A single digital platform will yield better results for data analysis and better programme architecture and implementation, similar to how a computer can have portions of a district or even whole districts traverse it.
Monitoring and governance based on data:
- Monitoring of the population and data-based governance are becoming more and more common methods for setting priorities.
- MPs must have access to pertinent data that relates to the populations they have been elected to represent in order to be able to act effectively, efficiently, and independently without relying entirely on the district administration, which is unable to offer reliable data on the PC. Effective connection with the various district administrations is also necessary.
Establishment of the District Coordination and Monitoring Committee:
- All states and Union Territories were given instructions by the Ministry of Rural Development in 2016 to set up a District Coordination and Monitoring Committee (DDMC), which will be in charge of more efficiently carrying out and supervising federal programmes. District MPs will serve as the DDMC’s chairmen.
Using examples on the international stage as inspiration:
- The Harvard University Geospatial Insights Lab has developed a new interactive PC data tracker that, for the first time, contains statistics on crucial demographic, health, and well-being estimations as well as factsheets for each of the 543 PCs.
- Data used in the PC dashboard is taken from the NFHS-4 (2015–2016) and NFHS-5 (2019-2021). The method used by the PC tracker provides a fill-in for the current PC data gap.
- In order to transfer existing NFHS survey clusters into PC border maps using GPS coordinates, the researchers first computed indicator prevalence estimates for each PC.
- It has enabled a trustworthy PC-level resource for the current data environment as a new universal data standard for all microdata (or data that is disaggregated below district levels, such as sub-districts, blocks, or villages) reporting in India. For a longer-lasting solution, all dataset must be constantly geo-tagged for PC.
- The 2022 Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy calls for a solution that is in line with the current policy goal of gradually digitising all public data and calls for the development of standards for metadata and datasets across ministries.
- Notwithstanding its youth, the implementation of a National Data Governance Policy at the 2023 budget session is a step in the right direction.
Conclusion:
- Timely and accessible data at the PC level can revolutionise how MPs conduct their business by exposing the most critical issues and at-risk populations in need of targeted remedies.
- Additionally, it might provide MPs more freedom to discuss policy matters on the floor of Parliament and in their regular interactions with district administrations.
- Also, it makes it simpler for MPs to initiate and sustain meaningful conversations on their own with other stakeholders and members of the civil society in order to work together to resolve the problems that are most important to their constituents.
