 Hello everyone, I am Deeksha Jain and I secured the 22nd rank in civil services examination in 2018. In this video, I will be taking up chapter 4 of the economic survey. So the chapter starts with a quote by Denk shopping which says, cross the river by feeling the stones and what does this mean? It basically means that you need to have an idea about the reality because in an increasingly uncertain world where so many forces are at work, the more whole you have over data of over statistics, over our own reality, the better it is for our economy to navigate and for even our development and other things to navigate through this world. So data can serve as the stones that enable us to cross the river. So in recent years, there has been a data explosion and there has been decreasing marginal cost of the data and this has been because of the increasing efficiency of gathering of data, increasing skills in processing of data and almost costless dissemination of data which happens through social media and so many other platforms over the internet. Of course, there are also certain challenges because it is not that everybody in the world is moving on with the digital economy as we call it because there is a whole section which does not use the internet. For example, in rural India, there are many farmers who do not really use the internet. So they are not that connected with the digital world of today and not all data is reliable as well because it is not all data that is collected today over the internet is gives an accurate figure about the lives of people and important aspects of their lives. The third and one of the most important concerns with data is the safety and privacy. So cyber security is a problem and the privacy of people which is being disrupted because of increasing use of their personal data for commercial purposes. These all remain a concern in our world of data that we are trying to use in a positive manner for governance. Okay, let us talk about what are the marginal benefits which are increasing because of the better use of data in governance. One is that evidence-based policy can happen. Number two, there will be more accountability in public services because of increasing transparency and more accurate data. Number three, better targeting of welfare programs and number four, nationally integrated markets which is basically things like NAM which NAM is the integrated market for agriculture and that can be true for any other sector as well. So there are more and more possibilities for these integrated markets and number five is that product innovation with more data and with more understanding of what people really want, they can be more and more product innovation. At the same time, the marginal costs of gathering that data are also decreasing and basically not just gathering, storing, using and all aspects of managing that data. The gathering costs, storing data, processing and dissemination, all the costs have been decreasing. So McKinsey report 2011 said that the global data infrastructure has largely proved reliable, fast and secure enough to handle this deluge of data. So basically, we do have a certain structure to use this data in a productive manner and to safeguard ourselves with the negative effects of misuse of data. So now, we will look at actually what the economics of it looks at is that why should data be treated as a public good and that is a very important aspect because today a lot of data is being used by commercial establishments. Why should the government be playing an important role in treating data as a public good? So basically, what has happened is that the commercial establishment close to 53 percent commercial establishments are using data to basically serve their own interests in terms of better product management, better access to the client etc. But that has not been the same in the case of other sectors like education and health which are important for development and governance but are ignored by the private sector. So the major reason why data needs to be treated as a public good is that number one, the private sector will not be looking at some crucial aspects in using that data which the government will be looking because government is welfare oriented. And number two, if more and more data is gathered and monopolized by the private sector then it can actually lead to de-development because it will be used to target people as clients and it will not be focusing on their welfare. So now the economic survey after this focuses on the economies of scale and scope in the data generation process. So what are the things, I mean how does more and more data help in improving the efficiency of data utilization? The first point is that the whole is larger than the sum of its parts. Today what happens is that every department, every government agency has its own separate database but because the whole is not integrated we are not getting that benefits. So when the whole is integrated more benefit can be taken out of the same data set. Another aspect of this is that the data needs to be more uniform and it needs to be covering a certain time scale and a critical mass of people to be actually useful in various important aspects of governance. The last point is that there is a need for data democratization, there is important data with the government which can be, when it is democratized if people have access to that data, if various companies have access to that data it can be used for the welfare of people, it will empower people because people will have more information, the government will be more accessible and many companies can also help the government in their process by making, creating new apps etc. So with this we come to the next, I mean how do we create a system? The next heading of the economic survey is building the system and here the first thing that we look at is a case study. So as we were talking about how the private sector and people can use this data in London transport what they did was that they made a lot of data, significant amount of data of the London transport relating to the travel time of people, the lags that the metros had experienced, various problems that were being faced and a lot of this data was made public and close to 600 apps which are making a travelling more convenient for people which are helping the government which are also generating employment are working on the basis of this data. So as a case study it shows that just by making data democratic by giving people access to data which is not impinging on for example national security a lot can be achieved. On similar lines Telangana has the Samaguru Vedika initiative. Now what this does is that it has, it has collated 25 existing government data sets on the basis of name and address so that any data with respect to a person can be accessed from any department. So it has led to a lot of plugging of leakages, a lot of efficiency and people have also benefited because there is a lot of smoothness and they can also access their government benefits in a more smooth manner. The economic survey mentions the Telangana model as something that can be used by other states as well and another point that had already been mentioned that the government data is very scattered as it is the government has a lot of data about citizens administrative data, sensors, various surveys etc. But because of its scattered nature they are not being used properly. So using taking cue from the Telangana model this is an aspect that can be improved. The economic survey further says that what it will lead to is it will enhance the ease of living for citizens, it will enable truly evidenced based policy, it will improve the targeting of welfare schemes, it will uncover unmet needs which the government does not even know about yet, it will integrate fragmented markets and it will bring greater accountability in the public services. And of late there has been a talk of linking these data sets through linking of Aadhaar Pankard for example, linking Aadhaar with Jandhan accounts, mobile numbers, bank accounts etc. So we are moving towards that integration of data and the economic survey also suggests a sort of central database for the welfare of citizens where all the data related to a citizen which does not impinge on his or her privacy and which is useful can be put in one place where all government agencies can actually access that data and make good use of it. Another example a case study that the economic survey uses is the local government directory. It is an application developed by Ministry of Panchayati Raj and it has a comprehensive directory of local administrative units, a platform map of each of the places and this has been aligned with the data from the census 2011. So a lot of rural data which was unorganized and scattered, they are trying to basically make a very uniform set of locations and data about village mapping. So this is seen as a use of data as a public good by the economic survey. The next heading that the economic survey talks about is utilizing technological advances to eliminate all privacy concerns. There has been a lot of talk about privacy. Privacy was declared as a fundamental right by the Supreme Court of India. So any use of data whether by the government or by any commercial unit should not and cannot impinge on a person's privacy and technology is something which empowers the government and other institutions to make sure that this can actually take place. The economic survey gives certain suggestions as to how this should be done. The first is that any ministry should be able to view the complete database but should not be allowed to edit the complete database. Only it should be able to edit only that database onto which it has access and authority and only those data fields for which it is responsible. Number second is that all the data entry should happen in real time and in such a way that one ministry's engagement with the data should not hamper another department or ministry's engagement with the data. Number three is that the database should be completely secured from outside tampering or any cyber security threats that is a very important part of protecting privacy and security of data. And the last part which is also very important is that that data which is not essential and compulsorily required by the government people should have a right so as to remove that data or not to divulge that data because then again it should not impinge on their privacy. So here we now move to transforming India's data infrastructure. So the economic survey gives certain suggestions as to how we can transform the data infrastructure and basically it should be done at the four stages that we have been talking about. First is gathering data. Here it says that digitized existing paper based data, a lot of data including land records, farm records etc is still on paper. So there needs to be a proper endeavor to digitize the data which is on paper. For example, through Project Bhumi, the Karnataka government is trying to digitize all its land records. Number two is initiate digital data collection at source. So any new data that we collect should be collected digitally and it should be immediately entered into the database. So through POS devices and through applications this also can be done. The second part is storing of data. So initial real time storage for select data. So basically what I was talking about that data should be stored immediately so that loss can be intercepted and a reduction of time lag between collection of data and entry of data. The third is processing of data. The government should build capacity to analyze and process data and the second point is that it should also take help from private sector entities in analysis and insight into data. The fourth part is disseminating data. Under this scheme dashboards can be created through which the major aspects of all the schemes requirements etc are available to all citizens. Open district level dashboard for public can be created. Open data from third party sources can also be created for the public. So there is a talk about cooperating with the private sector in order to disseminate data. So from here now we will move to applications. How is this entire data infrastructure that we are aiming for will be helpful to various sections of the society. There are again two case studies that the economics survey talks about. The first one is NREGA soft. So NREGA soft is an initiative through which all the data ways of NREGA, how many people are working, who has gotten, how many wages, which are the people which are left out the geographic geo-tagging of structures being built under NREGA. All of these are being consolidated under NREGA soft. So this is leading to more and more efficiency in NREGA implementation. The second one is National Scholarship Portal. Now this is a portal which integrates the scholarship data of all the central and state scholarships across the country. So better targeting of scholarships, less leakages of scholarships and more ease of living for the students who are eligible for this. So these are the two case studies that the economics survey looks at in terms of how application can lead to multi-level benefits for all sections of the society. So now we look at the government as a beneficiary. How does the government benefit? So number one is government can improve the targeting of welfare schemes and at the same time also subsidies are reducing both inclusion and exclusion errors. It can also improve public service delivery. For example, cross verification of income tax with GST return can highlight the basically if there is any tax evasion that is taking place. Private sector firms how they are beneficiaries. Now first is private sector firms can be given access to data which is not impinging which is not impinging on privacy, national security or any other major concern. An important aspect of this is that the government which is creating all this data infrastructure it can monetize this opportunity because this data will be used by the private sector to increase its access to basically reap a lot of profits. So the economics survey said that the government should monetize this and use it to fund data infrastructure that it endeavors to create. The third one is citizens as beneficiaries. Now citizens are the biggest group of beneficiaries. Every time the government benefits or even the private sector benefits, citizens will get benefited in some or the other way. We've already talked about ease of living, less discrepancy, better access to government resources, better tax payment etc. One example that the economics survey takes is of digital locker. So digital locker is a portal as many of you would already know where we can save digital copies of important certificates like tenth mark sheet or college degree etc. They are easily accessible to us. We can also we lose the fear of you know losing our important documents. It can ease the life of a student to be hassle free in terms of document and document verification. Even the institutes can directly verify the document through the digital locker. Another initiative that the economics survey talks about is the non-banking financial company account aggregator NBFC AA. So what this does is that it aggregates all the data of a person of an individual whether it is in terms of investment loans taken, money invested in non-banking financial organizations and any other financial activity. It gives the individual better access to his or her own financial journey and they can take important decisions like what is their credit worthiness, how much loan they can take and where all they should be investing, how to diversify their investment portfolio. And the importance of this initiative is also that it does not give a 360 degree invasive access to others. It is basically to make life easier for the beneficiary. So this is another example that the economics survey has taken. Another idea that the economic survey is toying with and it has been discussed a lot in the past years is the National Health Registry. It will be a registry where the health records of all the citizens will be there with due concern to privacy. Also immunization records, surveillance of syndromes, the hospitals and public health centers, what are the facilities that they offer etc. So this portal will also lead to a lot of benefits in terms of better health. People who are coming in emergency situations health background will be immediately available to the doctor and even a lot of studies which monitor what is the health status of the country, what are the main diseases which are affecting people and how to improve health. All these analysis will also be better with the availability of this data. So this is also an idea that the economics survey toys with. And so lastly after this the economics survey talks about the way forward and what it says is that through Aadhaar India has been at the forefront in the world in terms of data in technology revolution that is happening and it is an area that the government should tap and the government needs to view data as a public good and the economic survey goes as far as saying that it should be given equal importance as infrastructure is given because this is going to be very important in the coming future. And lastly taking from the constitution and in the spirit of the constitution the economic survey says that the data in India should be of the people by the people and for the people and therefore it should become a mantra of the government. So this chapter is all about how data should be used as a public good for the welfare of the people and that's all. Thank you so much. Try to our channel and click on the bell icon to get latest updates on upcoming videos.