OGD Quick Overview: NDSAP, Publishing Of Catalogs And Resources National Data Sharing And Accessibility Policy (NDSAP)

National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (gazette notified on 17th March’12) was formulated to provide an enabling provision and platform for proactive and open access to the data generated through public funds available with various ministries/departments/organizations of Govt. of India. National Informatics Centre (NIC), Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) is the nodal department to implement NDSAP in India, while the Department of Science & Technology is the nodal department on Policy matters.

Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India

The policy envisages the proactive dissemination of Government resources e.g. datasets, apps, tools etc. through the Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India – data.gov.in - to foster innovation; improve delivery of government information & services besides promoting transparency, accountability and public participation in governance. The datasets released on the Data Portal India get added advantage through visualization, enhanced discoverability & usage. By making data available in machine-readable formats, the OGD Platform also facilitates collaboration and cooperation between government and the public.

Publishing & Management Of Catalogs And Resources

Role Of Chief Data Officer

The Chief Data Officer spearheads the implementation of NDSAP in his/her Ministry/Department/ Organization. The key responsibilities of the Chief Data Officer are

• Take initiative to release as many datasets as possible on proactive basis.
• Identify the High Value Datasets and schedule their release on Open Government Data Platform India.
• Nominate Data Contributors.
• Ensure that the datasets being published are in compliance with NDSAP through a predefined workflow process.
• Periodically monitor the release of datasets as per predefined schedule.
• Take relevant action on the feedback/suggestions received from the citizen for the datasets belonging to the Ministry/Department/Organization.
• Head the NDSAP Cell, which helps in compilation, collation, conversion and publishing catalogs/resource on the platform. The size of the cell varies from Department to Department and depends on the quantum of resources to be published.

Role Of Data Contributor

A Chief Data Officer is empowered to nominate a number of Data Contributors who would be responsible for ensuring quality and correctness datasets of his/her unit/division and contributing catalogs and resources along with the metadata on the OGD Platform.

Contribution, Approval And Publishing Process For Catalogs And Resources

Chief Data Officer (CDO) can Log In into the OGD Platform using his/her EMAIL ID provided in the DC nomination letter sent to NIC. You can view the details of nominated Chief Data Officers and corresponding nomination letters on the OGD platform for your Ministry/Department/ Organization at http://data.gov.in/datacontrollers

Nominate Data Contributors. They can be Directors or Heads of respective divisions/units. They will coordinate, identify, prepare and release datasets of their division/unit OGD Platform. Data Contributors will try to prepare list of datasets which can be contributed. Prepare and contribute the metadata in predefined format for the datasets. The key metadata elements are Title, Description, Sector/Sub-Sector, Dataset Jurisdiction, Keywords, Access Method, Reference URLs, Data Group Name, Frequency and Policy Compliance. Detail about metadata elements and process to create Catalog/Resources is available at https://data.gov.in/help/help-guide-catalog-and-resources-creationcontribution. More information can be accessed from help section http://data.gov.in/help.

Catalogs/Resources along with the metadata contributed by the Data Contributor pass through a predefined workflow to the Chief Data Officer; who in turn ensures that it is in compliance with the NDSAP Policy. Catalogs/Resources are published only after approval of Chief Data Officer.

Chief Data Officer can edit the catalog/resources or can send it back to the Data Contributor for review/modification or pushes those to NDSAP PMU for publishing on the OGD Platform. The NDSAP PMU at NIC headquarters pushes the catalogs/resources from staging area to the production area and publishes on OGD Platform.

Ministry/Department should organize a workshop on OGD Platform for Chief Data Officer, Contributors and technical team for 2 hours that would help the stakeholders to understand the process better. NDSAP PMU would impart requisite training during the session about how to proceed and optimally make use of the platform for uploading Catalogs/Resources.

Detailed step by step procedures for resources (dataset/apps) contribution are available at https://data.gov.in/help. The Open Data Implementation Guidelines are available on the homepage of the OGD Platform at https://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP%20Implementation%20Guidelines%202.4.pdf.

For further details regarding implementation of NDSAP in your Ministry/Department you may contact:

NDSAP PMU (Programme Management Unit)
National Informatics Centre, DeitY
Room No. 375, 3rd Floor, A4B4 bay
A Block, CGO Complex, Lodi Road New Delhi - 110003
Phone: 011-24305395, 011-24305370, 011-24305381,
Fax: 011-24368854
Email: ndsap [at] gov [dot] in