Punjab State Data Policy 2020

Message by Capt. Amarinder Singh,

Hon’ble Chief Minister, Government of Punjab
Punjab is known for its dynamism and for spearheading changes in governance and the socio-
economic ecosystem. Over the past few years, progress in technology has ushered in a new
era of data-driven governance. Open data, transparency, data privacy, and e-governance have
emerged as the pillars of innovative decision making across the world. The State of Punjab
has been cognizant of this and has made significant progress with regard to using data and
technology for effective governance. The Punjab State Data Policy is a pathbreaking move to
accelerate the efficient and optimal use of data for governance.

Punjab is one of the first states in the country to formulate a comprehensive Data Policy. Through
this policy, we hope to leverage data as a powerful tool for socio-economic development of the
state, thereby nurturing a culture of data-driven and evidence-based decision making.

The Punjab State Data Policy shall serve as a guiding instrument to achieve the goal of promoting
inclusive development and enhancing the quality of life and services for the citizens of Punjab.
I am confident that this policy will act as the blueprint for the growth of a digitally empowered
Punjab and set a benchmark for other states to emulate.

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 Punjab State Data Policy 2020

Foreword by Ms. Vini Mahajan, IAS,

Chief Secretary to the Government of Punjab
The rapid development of technology has heralded a paradigm shift in the way governments
function worldwide. This need and pace of change is accelerated by tremendous increase in the
volume of data and ubiquity of mobile devices. Growing societal reliance on digital technologies
is not only reshaping citizens’ expectations but also redefining governance mechanisms.

The Government of Punjab has taken several steps towards e-governance and is increasingly
using data to improve service delivery and empower citizens. Taking these endeavors further
and becoming one of the first States in the country to take such an initiative, the Government
of Punjab has formulated a comprehensive state-level Data Policy. This overarching policy,
situated within the context of broader global and national focus on data, is a significant step
towards building a digital and data-driven governance ecosystem.

The Punjab State Data Policy 2020 (PSDP) shall lay down the fundamentals of data governance.
It shall set Punjab on a path to embrace technology and become agile in response to ecosystem
developments while ensuring citizen privacy and data security. While the detailed guidelines
for applications and systems shall be issued later, this Policy shall serve as a guiding principle
for all departments to collect, process, manage and use data for efficient, effective, transparent
and accessible service delivery to citizens.

The Government of Punjab adopts the Punjab State Data Policy with the hope that it will lead to
improved governance and citizen satisfaction.

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Contents
1 Preamble

2 Definitions

4 Vision

6 Data Classification

8 Data Governance Framework

14 Implementation Guidelines

17 Data for Decision Making

18 Training and Skill Development

19 Continuous Improvement

20 Budget Provisions

21 Conclusion

22 Annexure: Use Cases

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 Punjab State Data Policy 2020

I. Preamble
Reliable data is essential for efficient governance and transparent, effective, and accessible
service delivery. Punjab has taken strides in digitization of data and is now moving to institutionalize
a framework for data collection, sharing, storage, and usage. Recognizing the potential utility
and importance of the data generated by the government departments, organizations, and
institutions of the state for good governance, the Punjab State Data Policy (PSDP) seeks to
define the rules of engagement with regards to all aspects of data management while remaining
committed to protecting the privacy of citizens and making optimal use of data for evidence-
based decision-making.

The Department of Science and Technology, Government of India has issued the “National Data
Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP)” vide Gazette of India Notification No.II, Part 1, Sec
1 on 17th March 2012”, the “National Map Policy (2005)” and the “Remote Sensing Data Policy
(RSDP2001 and 2011)” which spell out data sharing principles of information generated using
public funds.

The Government of Punjab adopts the “Punjab State Data Policy (PSDP)” to facilitate easy
access and sharing of such Government-owned data, in an open format, for supporting
sustainable and inclusive governance and effective planning, implementation and monitoring of
developmental programmes, managing and mitigating disasters and scientific research aiding
informed decisions, for the public good. Moreover, the PSDP shall be cognizant of principles
of Non-Redundancy, Openness, Flexibility Standards, Interoperability, Quality, Efficiency,
Accountability, Intellectual Property Right (IPR), Right to Privacy and Right to Information.

Taking into consideration the amount of data stored and used by the government to carry out its
daily operations, especially welfare-oriented benefits to citizens, the data policy of the state shall
lay down the principles of storing and sharing all kinds of data held by the state government,
including personal, transactional, institutional (such as businesses, hospitals, schools) and
process data (including but not limited to finances incurred, resources and institutional support
put into service delivery and other details such as time, operations, etc.). This policy shall also
provide to enable interoperability of data use cases for efficient use of existing data such as to
minimize duplication of data entry, leverage data maintained between various departments, and
ensure leakages and loopholes in service delivery are plugged.

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II. Definitions
For the purposes of this policy, unless the context otherwise requires:-
1. Cloud Technology
Internet based computing in which large groups of configurable remote servers are networked
to allow sharing of centralized data storage, data processing tasks and on-demand access
to computing resources.

2. Data
Representation of information, numerical compilations, and observations, documents, facts,
maps, images, charts, tables and figures, concepts in digital and/or analogue forms. This will
also include other forms of data that shall be generated and/or collected by the government
in the future, for example facial recognition data, etc.

3. Data Generation
Initial generation/collection of the data or subsequent addition of data to the same
specification. It may be categorized into primary data acquisition, satellite, and aerial by
designated agencies and secondary data collection under the same specification (refers
to modification or addition to the primary/initial data sets) through ground survey/data
acquisition. This also covers non-human data collection via drones, bots, and other emerging
internet of things (IoT) devices.

4. Dataset
A named collection of logically related features including processed data or information.

5. De-identification
The process by which a data processor may remove, or mask identifiers from personal data,
or replace them with such other fictitious name or code that is unique to an individual but
does not, on its own, directly identify the individual.

6. Geospatial Data
All data which is geographically referenced.

7. Information
Processed data.

8. Machine Readable Format

A machine readable format (e.g.:- csv, json, xml, etc.) is a structured data format that
computers and software applications can easily and automatically recognize, read and
process.

9. Master Data
The data which has clear ownership and doesn’t change frequently and describes the
core entities of the state/organization. Master data includes a consistent and uniform set of
identifiers and attributes. For example, districts in Punjab, departments in the government,
etc.

10. Metadata
The information that describes the data sources and the time, place, and conditions under
which the data was created. Metadata informs the user of who, when, what, why, and how
data were generated. Metadata allows the data to be traced to a known origin and a known
quality.
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11. Negative List

Non-sharable data as declared by the departments/ organizations; personal data and the
datasets which are confidential in nature and/or are in the interest of the country’s security in
not opening to the public.

12. Open Data

A dataset is said to be open if anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it. It should be
machine readable and easily accessible.

13. Personal Data

Data about or relating to a person who is directly or indirectly identifiable, having regard to
any characteristic, trait, attribute or any other feature of the identity of such person, whether
online or offline, or any combination of such features with any other information, and shall
include any inference drawn from such data for the purpose of profiling.

14. Raw Data

Raw data is data from the primary source. The processing of raw data results in ‘information’,
such as a statistical table, graph, search result, etc.

15. Sensitive Personal Data

Sensitive Data refers to personal data or information of a person which consists of information
relating to:
i. Password
ii. Payment instrument details including bank account or credit card or debit card or other
iii. Physical, physiological and mental health condition/s
iv. Sex life and sexual orientation
v. Medical records and history
vi. Biometric information
vii. Genetic data
viii. Political opinions
ix. Religious and philosophical beliefs
x. Any of the above information as provided to third party for providing service
xi. Any of the above information received from third party for processing, stored or processed
under lawful contract or otherwise

16. Shareable Data

Those data not covered under the scope of negative list and non-shareable data.

17. State Data Center

The State Data Center for the Government of Punjab refers to the facility owned and managed
by the Department of Governance Reforms and Public Grievances to house applications and
data in SAS Nagar, Punjab, and any other such data centres and cloud services approved
by the Government of Punjab and/or Government of India.

18. Transactional Data

Transactional data is the data that emanates from transaction of information, finances, or
service.

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III. Vision
The Vision of the PSDP is a State that has been transformed into a digitally empowered society
where the government leverages data and technology to optimize service delivery and citizens’
access and participation is promoted via user-friendly and secure e-governance systems, and
data is used for evidence-based policymaking and programmatic decision making.

1. Need for Data Policy

In recent years, the Government of Punjab (GoP) has taken strides towards digitizing and storing
data related to the delivery of government services across policy areas. Increasingly, this data
is being used by planners and decision-makers to track progress and optimize service delivery
and empower citizens to access services with greater efficiency. These efforts, situated within a
broader national movement towards greater data-use, are important steps towards digital, data-
driven governance.

There is a need to ensure equitable, productive, and sustainable development planning as

well as good and inclusive governance. The sharing of relevant data is imperative to facilitate
effective and transparent governance. Lack of appropriate standards and interoperability of data
and information systems leads to ineffective and suboptimal management and practices. This
calls for the adoption of data policy in the state which conceptualizes provisions for appropriate
data management methods encompassing the entire continuum of data generation, handling,
warehousing and accessibility by defining data standards and processes as guiding principles
for all Departments and institutions falling under their purview.

2. Scope
The “Punjab State Data Policy” shall apply to all data and information created, generated,
collected, and processed using public funds provided by the Government of Punjab, Central
Government funds, and also International donor organizations, directly or through authorized
agencies by various Departments/ Organizations/Agencies and Autonomous bodies of the
Punjab State. All such data shall be stored and maintained in the State Data Centre (SDC), SAS
Nagar with adequate data management/security and with systems and procedures in place for
access and use by all stakeholders in the State as defined under this policy.

3. Benefits of the Policy

a. Maximizing use
Access to government-owned data will enable the more extensive use of the information to
deliver services and facilities in an efficient and transparent manner.

b. Interoperability to avoid duplication

By facilitating the sharing of required data across departments, the need for separate bodies
to collect the same data will be minimized. This will result in significant time and cost-saving
in data collection.

c. Maximized integration
Adoption of common standards and best practices across various datasets and MIS would
facilitate the integration of individual datasets.

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d. Ownership information
Dedicated owners for each dataset and clear responsibilities for implementation and
maintenance of datasets shall provide for data digitization, accuracy, maintenance and
updation.

e. Better decision making

Availability of data will enable data-driven decision making along with avenues and platforms
for monitoring, reporting and planning.

f. Better tracking for policy implementation

Real-time availability of data (for example those relating to weather, pollution, and traffic) will
allow and open pathways for live tracking of policy implementation and impact, especially
for welfare schemes.

g. Enhance the efficiency of delivery of services

Data sharing and interoperability through this policy will be instrumental in reducing leakages
and plugging loopholes in the delivery of welfare services.

h. Incentivization to switch to data governance

The focus on insights and thus targeted impact gained from analysis and interpretation of
historical data shall incentivize departments and agencies to adopt data-driven decision
making.

i. Equity of access
Open data practices ensure better access to all bonafide users. The PSDP shall enable the
use of open access data by research and civil society organizations.

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IV. Data Classification

It would be incumbent upon all the government departments to define and allow access to and
sharing of all the data generated by them using government funds, subject to the following data
access structure:

1. Open Access
A dataset is said to be open if anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it. Open data shall
be easily accessible in machine-readable formats that are optimized for machine processing.
Access to data generated from public funding should be easy, timely, user-friendly, and web-
based without any process of registration/ authorization. This data shall be accessible at punjab.
data.gov.in as well as other websites owned by the government and/or its institutions. Following
is an indicative list of the types of data which falls under Open Access:

a. Data of aggregates
This includes data such as hospital beds / 1000 population, teacher-student ratio by village
/ 1000 population), percentage of children fully immunized by primary health centres etc.

b. Processed/Value Added Data

This includes data such as GDP, per capita income, etc.

c. Data generated through delivery of government services

This includes data under outcome and output indicators of delivery of government schemes
and programs, e.g.- literacy rate, infant mortality rate etc. as well as process indicators on
service delivery such as pendency, timely resolutions of grievances, etc.

d. Geospatial data
Data consisting of primarily satellite data, maps and unit-level data for the public good, e.g.-
location (GPS coordinates) and details of health facilities, sewa kendras, fair price shops,
public transport routes.
No personal or sensitive data shall fall under Open Access data. Open Access data should
contain low impact data i.e. wherein the loss of confidentiality, integrity or availability1 is expected
to have none or limited adverse effect on the individuals and the government department who
owns the information.

2. Registered Access
Datasets which are accessible only through a prescribed process of registration/ authorization
by respective departments/ organizations will be available to the recognized institutions/
organization/ public users, through defined procedures. This shall primarily consist of raw data
or a database dump which has been masked for identifiers such that it can be used for research
purposes by academic/research/ civil society organizations.

1 A loss of confidentiality is the unauthorized disclosure of information. A loss of integrity is the unauthorized modification or destruction
of information. A loss of availability is the disruption of access to or use of information or an information system.

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3. Non-shareable
Sensitive personal data and the datasets which are confidential in nature and are in the
interest of the country’s security in not opening to the public would fall in the negative list. Data
which is explicitly prohibited from being shared as per Section 8 and Section 9 of the Right to
Information Act 2005. The RTI Act, 2005, and Right to Privacy judgment 2017 should be taken
into consideration while making this list. Few examples of non-shareable data are biometric
information, medical records, etc.

Non-shareable data shall contain high impact data wherein the loss of confidentiality, integrity or
availability could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect on the government
department who owns the information and individuals.

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V. Data Governance Framework

The enforcement of the PSDP is critical in order to achieve the vision of a digitally empowered state.
Therefore, a streamlined data governance framework has been laid down for the implementation
and supervision of the PSDP. Good data governance is imperative for delivering quality services
to citizens and for effective policymaking. A data governance framework will help extract value
from all the data held in the state, enabling greater data access, sharing and integration at the
state-level thus increasing overall efficiency and accountability. The following framework shall
be adopted across all government departments and governmental organizations in Punjab:

1. Ownership for Internal Governance

The ownership of all data shall reside with the department/ agency/ institution for which the data
has been primarily generated directly or indirectly. In cases where the data is being generated
for multiple agencies, the department/ agency/ institution responsible for the execution and/or
coordination of the project shall be the primary owner of the data being generated. However,
guidelines for access to this data by all parties who require access for planning and executing
the process shall be laid down by the owner department/ agency/ institution as may be needed.

For all data collected generated and/ or processed by the Government, it shall be the
responsibility of the owner department to ensure that relevant stakeholders at every stage of
data generation, processing, storage, and use process are sensitized to relevant data policies.
The owner department shall also appoint nodal officers/ staff at each level of data reporting,
digitization, processing and management to ensure adherence to policies.

2. Collection and Processing

a. Data collection shall be conducted with the utmost integrity. The data collected should be
free of bias. The desired outcomes of the service delivery or policy implementation should not
influence data entry. Further, the outcomes of the service delivery or policy implementation
should not affect the incentives for the frontline workers and other government officials
involved in data collection.

b. Data collection shall be integrated with service delivery, where possible. Frontline workers
and other government officials involved in the delivery of services to citizens shall collect
relevant program data as a regular part of program/ service processes.

c. Data shall be collected electronically where possible, and paper-based data will be
digitized. Investments shall be made to transition fully from paper-based systems like
registers, diaries, and forms, to electronic data collection platforms. Where paper-based
data collection is necessary, regular data entry processes shall be standardized to ensure
digitization of all data. It must be ensured that raw paper data is digitized without loss
of information. All paper-based data collected shall be digitized by the corresponding
department within twenty (20) working days of its collection. Departments may request for
an extension of this timeline for specific schemes/programs/datasets by sending a written
request to the State Data Steering Committee (SDSC) for approval.

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d. Basic data cleaning shall be done systematically and automated where possible. Data
shall be regularly run through automated processes and algorithms and other state-of-
the-art data cleaning mechanisms to verify and validate data for quality, accuracy and/or
consistency. These automated checks (such as mobile number fields should allow only 10
digits) shall be built into the data collection platforms for all departments.

e. Input constraints and automatic data checks shall be used to standardize data entry
quality. Data entry interfaces shall be designed such that extensive use of dropdowns, select
one/select multiple display options, and string validation rules is made to minimize data
quality issues at the entry stage. The concerned department shall identify and implement
such constraints and checks. The technical expertise of DGR&PG may be leveraged for the
implementation of such checks.

f. Data collection and storage shall be compliant with data privacy and security laws
and best practices. Data collection shall be ethical and data security measures such as
encryptions, firewalls, and access controls shall be established to prevent unauthorized
access to confidential data, data manipulation and data loss.

3. Quality and Relevance

a. Data shall be collected according to decision-making and reporting needs. Data is
responsive to decision-makers’ monitoring, reporting, and planning needs. The collection of
data that does not serve a clear purpose shall be minimized.

b. Data shall be regularly checked for quality. Purposive or random samples of data shall
regularly be run through a standard list of data quality checks, and in-person supervision
helps validate data quality. The department shall enforce these checks for all datasets in its
purview every six (6) months.

c. Datasets shall be updated. Updates shall occur on a real-time basis by digitization of data
collection. Where data is collected on paper, digitization shall be completed within twenty
(20) working days of collection of such data. Departments may request for an extension of
this timeline for specific schemes/programs/datasets by sending a written request to the
Administrative Secretary, Department of Governance Reforms and Public Grievances for
approval. The State Data Steering Committee (SDSC) shall be informed of the request and
the final decision by the requesting Department.

d. Appropriate control mechanisms to keep a check on data manipulation shall be implemented

at each level, such as the provision of password protected edit rights to specific users only,
maintaining a log of access, entries and changes made to records to trace the user, date
and time of the entry/change, etc.

e. Collaborations for independent data audits for datasets where data is generated from
the information entered into the system shall be done by the departments who own the
information being entered.

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4. Interoperability
The government department(s) and government organization(s) of the State of Punjab have
a rich and diverse repository of various kinds of data, which may overlap from duplication
of data entry and/or generation. Additionally, data collected, generated and/or processed
by one department may be required to improve service delivery and governance in another
department. There is, therefore, a need to enable streamlined interoperability of data systems
between the departments in order to avoid duplication, redundancies and leakages in service
delivery. However, while the data structures, infrastructure and systems shall be designed and
built to enable streamlined interoperability, the access to any dataset owned by one department/
agency by another department/agency shall be exclusively on a need basis. Departments/
agencies may submit their proposition for such requests to the SDSC for consideration and
approval such that the Chief Data Officer may coordinate for its implementation.

The following may be taken as guiding principles to build mechanisms for data interoperability
within and across departments and organizations in the state government

a. Metadata repositories shall be built, published, and updated regularly. All government
departments and organizations shall invest in building and maintaining metadata repositories
and publish these to improve awareness of what data exists and whether and how datasets
across geographies/sectors/federal levels/time periods can be integrated

b. Standardization of data objects that appear across datasets. Regional hierarchies,

population subgroups, identifying data and other generic data objects that appear across
datasets shall be stored using common standards and guidelines built by DGR&PG so that
data from across departments can be integrated. Updates to the common schema shall be
coordinated across departments.

c. Datasets shall be stored in standard machine-readable formats. Such formats are used by
other databases and therefore reduce compatibility issues, minimize conversion effort, and
enable the easy exchange of data.

5. Sharing and Access

The principles on which data sharing and accessibility need to be based include openness,
flexibility, transparency, legal conformity, protection of intellectual property, formal responsibility,
professionalism, compliance to set standards, interoperability, quality, security, efficiency,
accountability, sustainability and right to privacy. The following are general practices to ensure
adherence to principles as listed above:

a. Data shall be published in machine-readable formats with easy bulk download options.
Use of formats such as csv, xml, json etc. shall be promoted while minimizing the use of
PDFs and word documents to publish data. Data across geographical and time units shall
be made available for download in bulk.

b. Published data shall be made easily searchable and consistently available. Data platforms
shall be organized in an intuitive manner so that users can easily find up-to-date metadata
repositories for all published datasets. Once published, datasets shall always be available
and historical data be well maintained.

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c. Data shall be made available to decision-makers via user- friendly interfaces. Data
platforms shall be designed to provide decision-makers with basic analytics (indicators
and summary statistics) and visualizations (such as bar graphs and trend lines) and the
flexibility to adapt default analytics to their decision-making needs. These interfaces shall be
designed to update on a real-time basis, with utmost accuracy. The usage of such interfaces
by decision makers shall be promoted to enhance data-driven governance and policy
making in Punjab.

d. Dashboards shall be made available for citizens to engage with real-time data with minimal
access barriers. Citizens’ access to data shall be facilitated by presenting data in simple,
engaging formats and by minimizing access barriers (such as captchas, confusing site
navigation, or slow page load times). Citizens shall be provided with the option to download
underlying data for further analysis. All Departments shall prepare and publish on their
own website as well as on the State open data portal which shall be built and maintained
by DGR&PG, the list of all data held by them. All the concerned departments shall maintain,
update and standardize such data regularly to facilitate easy and uninterrupted access to
these data by all the government departments and bona fide users as per the conditions laid
down under the data policy.

6. Security and Protection

a. All state departments and government organizations must abide by all the latest data
security and protection policy guidelines and frameworks of the Ministry of Electronics and
Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. These guidelines include and are not
limited to -

i. Use and implementation of state of the art monitoring tools

ii. Security audit at the state data center by third party experts periodically (once in six
months)
iii. Periodic analysis of system audit logs to identify inappropriate and illegal access and to
mitigate security threats
iv. Implementation of data back-up and recovery processes
v. Regular updates to all IT infrastructure

b. DGR&PG shall be the nodal department for defining, maintaining and tracking the benchmarks
on data security and protection for the Government of Punjab. These benchmarks shall be
derived from policy guidelines of MeitY and any additional indicators as approved by the
SDSC. A department wise status report on compliance with guidelines on data protection
and security shall be provided to the SDSC at regular intervals by DGR&PG.

c. The DGR&PG may notify a detailed policy for data security and protection in continuation to
and in compliance of this policy.

7. Data Privacy
a. Privacy is a fundamental right, flowing from the right to life and personal liberty under Article
21 of the Constitution. Privacy of personal data and facts is an essential aspect of the right
to privacy. In this regard, no personal data shall be processed by any person, except for any

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specific, clear and lawful purpose. The personal data shall be collected only to the extent
that is necessary for the purposes of processing of such personal data. Any processing of
personal data can be done only after de-identification.

b. The usage and transfer of personal data of citizens shall abide by the Information Technology
(IT) Rules 2011, under the IT Act, 2000, and any other national or state acts and/or policies
which may follow and cover data privacy in its scope.

c. All department(s)/government organization(s) to note that any Aadhaar data shall be

considered to be highly sensitive and must be used only as per the provisions of the Aadhaar
Act, 2016, as may be amended from time to time.

d. The DGR&PG may notify a detailed policy for data privacy in continuation to and in
compliance of this policy.

8. Data continuity and retention

a. Data retention systems should be implemented to manage and ensure data retention for the
period necessary to satisfy the purposes of data collection.

b. Guidelines for data recovery, continuity and protection shall be prepared by DGR&PG.

9. General Guidelines
a. Every department should build a Management Information System (MIS) for the purpose of
data management and maintenance. Within eighteen (18) months from the date of notification
of this policy, all departments will operationalize their MIS and digitize all data held and/or
managed and/or used by the department. The MIS should be reviewed by the SDSC for
standardization of data across all departments in the state.

b. Detailed implementation guidelines including the technology and standards for data
collection, maintenance, and processing; and metadata would be published by the DGR&PG,
Government of Punjab.

c. All departments shall maintain metadata repositories. All metadata will follow standards
and will contain adequate information on proper citation, access, contact information and
discovery. Complete information including methods, structure, semantics and quality control/
assurance is expected for most datasets.

d. Metadata relating to geospatial datasets would contain information on scale, projection,

datum, resolution and date of acquisition of sources like satellite image/ aerial photos, etc.

e. The departments shall ensure that the software used in creating and generating geospatial
data and information in future complies with Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards.

f. All shareable data shall be made available, by the departments, to a web-based citizen
dashboard on an ‘as-is where-is’ basis. Masked and de-identified data dumps shall also be
available on the interface for research and academic institutions.

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g. All departments will identify and prepare a comprehensive list of data sets maintained by
them mentioning the frequency of data updation for each dataset. Within six (6) months from
the date of notification of this policy, all departments will create a structure for each dataset
with metadata in a standardized format. All Departments will also categorize the datasets
into non-shareable data, registered access data and open access data within five (5) months
of the notification of the policy, which will be reviewed by the SDSC once every year.

h. For extension of any of the above mentioned timelines, the departments may request to the
State Data Steering Committee in written for approval.

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VI. Implementation Guidelines

1. Supervision and Monitoring
Entities for Supervision and Monitoring of data policy shall be set up at three levels. They shall
be responsible to ensure compliance with the state data policy and other relevant policies and
processes.

a. A Stata Data Steering Committee (SDSC) will be created chaired by the Chief Secretary to
the Government of Punjab and comprising of the following members:

i. Administrative Secretary, DGR&PG

ii. Administrative Secretary, Department of Planning
iii. Director Governance Reforms, DGR&PG
iv. 3-5 officers/experts, as nominated by the Chairperson.

The composition of the Committee may be reviewed and revised as and when needed and
at least once in every 6 months.
The Director Governance Reforms (DGR), DGR&PG shall act as the Convener for this
Committee.

The role of SDSC will be to coordinate and monitor the implementation of this policy through
close collaboration with all state government departments and agencies. SDSC will also
establish standards, undertake data analysis, interpretation and dissemination at the state
level.

The SDSC shall appoint a Chief Data Officer (CDO) supported by a team which shall have a
relevant background in technology, public policy, economics, statistics, data analytics, law,
and/or other relevant subjects to support the SDSC on implementation of this policy and
related projects.

The SDSC shall be responsible to:

i. Advise various departments with regards to the use of data and information in the
developmental planning of the State.
ii. Notify what constitutes as master data which shall be standardized across all the
departments. Approve and enforce any additions or changes to be made in the master
data, such as the creation of new districts or change in nomenclature of districts, for all
the departments.
iii. Formulate future policies/ guidelines regarding classification and use of data and
information in the planning process, disaster mitigation and scientific research of the
State.
iv. Promote and facilitate the sharing of data and information among various State
Government Departments and other users with policy formulation and implementation
focused on the development and sustainable use of geospatial databases.
v. Review and monitor the implementation of data sharing and accessibility practices every
quarter.

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b. All departments will constitute a Department Data Cell under the chairmanship of the
Department Administrative Secretary. A Data Officer will be appointed by the Administrative
Secretary who shall be exclusively responsible for supervising and ensuring compliance
to the PSDP within the department as well as undertake practices for data digitization,
management, processing, quality, and analysis for evidence-based decision making.

The Data Officer shall report to the Administrative Secretary and send the department’s
review report on the implementation of PSDP to the CDO every 3 months. In addition to the
Data Officer, it is recommended that the department also recruit or appoint additional staff
under the data cell as per requirement.

This cell shall also be responsible for sharing, publishing, and standardization of the
Departments’ data and for coordinating with SDSC on a regular basis.

This cell shall serve as the nodal agency for implementation of all data governance-related
practices within the department for this as well as future policies relevant to governance.

c. A District Data Cell shall be constituted in each district under the chairpersonship of the
Deputy Commissioner to supervise, coordinate and ensure compliance to this policy at the
district level as well as undertake practices for data digitization, management, processing
and analysis for evidence-based decision making.

The manpower with the requisite skills for the District Data Cell in each district may be
provided by the Department of Planning.

The District Data Cell shall coordinate with the Department Data Cells as well as the Chief
Data Officer to ensure that all practices, as outlined under this policy, like those spearheaded
by the Chief Data Officer and/or the Department Data Officers are implemented in their
respective districts.

d. In addition to these internal teams, the SDSC, under the chairpersonship of the Chief
Secretary, shall constitute an Expert Group for Data Governance with individuals and
organizations outside the government who are reputed in the fields of data management,
data-driven decision making and evidence-based policy and development. This Expert
Group shall review the practices, standards, guidelines, metadata and mechanisms for data
digitization, quality and security to suggest improvements.

This Expert Group shall meet at least once in every 6 months with the SDSC, the Chief Data
Officer and the Department Data Officers for this discussion.

2. Storage and dataset organization

a. All departments will store their datasets at State Data Centre as defined under Section II-17.
The DGR&PG would be responsible for complying with all the data protection and security
protocols. The departments may also store their data on another cloud technology service
as a backup if required.

b. Each department shall create and maintain a single common comprehensive repository
of its beneficiaries/ users which shall act as the single source of truth for the delivery of
all services under the department to those beneficiaries/ users. This shall be known as
the ‘Citizen Register’. The department shall ensure that this database is kept updated for
efficient service delivery.

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 Punjab State Data Policy 2020

c. Each department shall create and maintain a single comprehensive repository of its employees
and all staff/ workers engaged to work with the department temporarily or permanently, paid
as well as unpaid. This shall be known as the ‘Employees Register’. The department shall
ensure that this database is kept updated and can be appropriately integrated with other
human resource management platforms in use by the Government.

d. For some entities, as listed below, a specific department shall be responsible to create and
maintain a data repository related to the type of entity and all other departments shall take
this repository as the single source of truth for the type of entity for all transactional and
service delivery purposes:

a. The Department of Industries and Commerce shall create and maintain a repository of all
commercial as well as non-commercial enterprises registered in and/or operating in
Punjab. This shall be known as the ‘Business Register’. The Department of Industries
and Commerce shall ensure that this database is regularly updated and reliable for use
and processing.
b. The Department of Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management shall create and
maintain a repository of all land falling within the boundaries of Punjab. This shall be
known as the ‘Land Register’. The Department shall ensure that this database is regularly
updated and reliable for use and processing.
c. More items under this list may be notified by the SDSC, as per requirement.

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 Punjab State Data Policy 2020

VII. Data for Decision Making

In order to encourage data driven decision making and evidence based policies, the following
measures shall be taken:

1. The Chief Data Officer shall be responsible to prepare outcome based budget propositions
with the Department Data Officers such that it can be used by the Department of Planning
and Department of Finance for evidence based budget allocation.

2. The Chief Data Officer and the Department Data Officers shall actively engage with research,
academic and civil society organizations on purposes of data analysis and interpretation that
can support the department/s with insights that enable evidence-based decision making
and anticipatory innovation governance.

3. Reports and dynamic dashboards shall be developed and maintained with input, output and
outcome indicators to indicate the socio-economic progress made by the government under
each sector/ department/ district in the state. Efforts shall be made to also make accessible
data on budget allocation and expenditure for each scheme and programmatic intervention.

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 Punjab State Data Policy 2020

VIII. Training and Skill Development

Alongside a strong IT infrastructure, governance framework and guidelines for data governance,
it is crucial that the government manpower is regularly upskilled on technical skills, practices
and know-how of data handling, management and use such that this policy may be successfully
implemented, and data may be used to its potential for evidence-based decision making.
Training and skill development shall be designed to equip all government manpower with
the appropriate and up-to-date knowledge and skill sets such that a culture of data-driven
governance is encouraged and adopted by all in the Government of Punjab.

1. SDSC, in consultation with the Expert Group, shall lay down a plan for regular training and
skill development of all government manpower, especially the manpower involved in data
collection, processing, management and/or use.

2. Under the guidance of the SDSC, the DGR&PG and Department of Planning shall develop
training modules which shall be made available online and can be used by all officials and
staff engaged in data collection, management, processing and/or use to enhance their skills
on the matter.

3. The Department of Planning shall develop, make available, maintain and regularly update
content on data governance including data handling, management and use.

4. The DGR&PG shall develop, make available, maintain and regularly update content on the
IT infrastructure and protocols used for data collection, processing, management and use.

5. The DGR&PG shall also build a common platform where this content can be accessed and
used by all government officials and staff.

6. The Chief Data Officer under the SDSC shall be responsible for necessary coordination and
execution of this exercise, in consultation with the Department Data Officers and the District
Data Cells.

7. All training shall be customized to the requirement at each level of data governance and
management. Special emphasis shall be given to the training of district level officers and
staff involved in data collection, cleaning, handling, reporting and processing at the granular
level.

8. Departments may enter into collaborations with universities, academia and other such
knowledge partners for designing and implementation of skill building modules, data-driven
innovations and/or other related initiatives.

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 Punjab State Data Policy 2020

IX. Continuous Improvement

1. Periodic Review of Data Policy:
This policy shall be reviewed by the SDSC in coordination with the Expert Group, at least
once every 2 years to update and revise the policy as may be required in accordance with
the applicable laws, infrastructure and other developments.

2. Third-party assessment of policy implementation and practices:

As has been mentioned under Section V-3-e, the Chief Data Officer under the guidance
of the SDSC and the Department Data Officers under the guidance of their respective
Administrative Secretaries shall actively build collaborations with external organizations for
third party audit and assessment of datasets generated from information being entered into
the MIS; guidelines being used to process and use the datasets under the MIS; and the MIS
being used by each department/agency. Such assessments are recommended to be done
once every year.

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 Punjab State Data Policy 2020

X. Budget Provisions
The implementation of Punjab State Data Policy is expected to entail expenditures for both
data owners and data managers for data conversion, data refinement, data storage, quality
upgradation, etc.

The administrative departments/public organizations may approach the Department of Finance

for appropriate budget allocation in this regard.

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 Punjab State Data Policy 2020

XI. Conclusion
The State Data Policy is formulated with a mandate of using government owned data and
information in the interest of citizens of the state. In line with this policy, various departments will
be encouraged to share data and information with each other and other stakeholders including
citizens in order to enable data-driven planning and progress tracking thereof. The Punjab State
Data Policy will provide greater scope for better, data-informed decision making in the State
while adhering to the highest data protection standards and commitment to the principles of
Data Privacy.

The scope and objectives of this policy may be expanded and enriched in future, as the need
may be.

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 Punjab State Data Policy 2020

XII. Annexure: Use Cases

A few use cases of where this policy can help improve governance and support evidence based
decision making are shared below:

Use Case 1:
Integrating ICDS and Health data systems to improve coordination between
Anganwadi Workers (AWW), Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), and Auxiliary
Nurses and Midwives (ANM)
AWW, ground functionaries under the Department of Social Security & Women and Child
Development, and ASHAs, and ANMs, under the Department of Health & Family Welfare, have
overlapping mandates to provide maternal and child health and nutrition services, there is
no formal mechanism for these three crucial frontline workers to share data and coordinate
effectively. Currently, ASHAs and AWW identify beneficiaries and mobilize community members
by conducting home visits, and informally but often independently share data with the ANM,
who then delivers key health services like immunizations, antenatal care, basic diagnostics,
treatment, and referrals.

Integrating and streamlining the data systems in the two departments used by these three
workers – especially systems used to identify beneficiaries and track their outcomes – would
help promote the convergence. This a major goal under the POSHAN Abhiyaan initiative, which
will provide a host of benefits such as enabling better targeting and prioritization of home visits,
promoting accountability for case identification and ensuring that no beneficiaries are missed,
and minimizing the duplication of data collection effort.

For example, AWWs are responsible for conducting growth monitoring every month, which
means they are best placed to identify children who are suffering from severe acute malnutrition
(SAM). However, it is the ANM who delivers the care to SAM children. If AWWs and ANM use
a shared portal where the AWW can mark SAM children identified during her round and send
a notification to the ANM, the ANMs can prioritize their house visits more effectively than they
are in status quo, where such data sharing does not happen, or happens in an unstructured,
informal way. Similar use cases exist for other overlapping beneficiary groups (such as pregnant
and lactating women).

Use Case 2:
Linking cadastral maps to ownership and cultivation data to create a geo tagged
village level planning tool
The Revenue department is in the process of digitizing Punjab’s cadastral maps. This could
be an opportunity to create a powerful map-based planning tool that links the digital cadastral
maps to the Record of Rights and mutations data, crop inspection data, and village level
administrative data. This can be facilitated through interdepartmental data sharing among the
Department of Revenue, Rehabilitation & Disaster, Department of Agriculture and Department
of Rural Development and Panchayats. Linking these data sources, would allow a user to
theoretically click on any land parcel in any village to understand the agricultural details such
as the cultivation arrangement, type of soil, principal kharif and rabi crops, and irrigation system

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 Punjab State Data Policy 2020

as well as understand whether the land is currently under dispute, and potentially what the
ownership structure is. Most of these data points are being captured by the local revenue
officers but are currently only available in single PDFs in the digitized records of rights and the
crop inspection registers.

An integrated planning tool like this could be of use to different decision makers such as
someone trying to identify vulnerable villages/areas within a village, or someone trying to assess
eligibility for various agricultural schemes (such as PM KISAN, where availing benefits requires
some proof of land ownership). Such data, visualized at this level of detail, would also inform
infrastructure planning (such as by allowing a user to assess where there is empty land to build
on, or whether certain areas are under dispute, etc.)

Use Case 3:
Linking the Department of School Education’s student database with the Department
of Social Security & Women and Child Development and Department of Water Supply
& Sanitation to assess schemes focusing on girls and people with disabilities (PWD).
The Department of School Education has a huge student database which is managed through
ePunjab School MIS. This database has information on personal and financial records of each
student. This data can be shared with the Department of Social Security & Women and Child
Development and the Department of Health to facilitate schemes that focus on indicators and
outcomes pertaining to younger and adolescent girls, and people with disabilities (PWD),
such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Poshan Abhiyaan, and so on. For example, the dataset on
‘separate toilets for girls in schools’ will be owned by the Department of School Education, and
the Department of Social Security and Women and Child Development, and the Department of
Water Supply and Sanitation shall have access to this dataset.

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