The days of filing right to information (RTI) applications to get information from the government may soon be over. The government is planning to voluntarily put all information on public domain and encourage development of applications (apps) around them to encourage greater and more efficient access.
With transparency becoming more than a buzzword, in fact evolving to become a deliverable, the government also needs to think beyond the RTI. Thus, the government is devising a project that puts information online on a real-time to near-real-time basis.

This broad body of data will be called Open Data. The government plans to buid android-friendly apps for people to use this data. In this context, national informatics centre (NIC) along with Nasscom organised a conference on 'Open data apps for innovation in governance' in Delhi on Thursday.

The conference was organised to encourage the use of open government data. The website data.gov.in which is to be the repository for all government data and was in the beta version was launched in its full avatar by Kapil Sibal, union minister for information technology and communications. At present, 3,500 data sets are available on the website which the government plans to increase to 10,000 by the end of the year.

Many dignitaries from the government and private sector, including IT secretary J Satyanarayana, participated in the event. Sam Pitroda, advisor to the prime minister, marked his presence through video-conferencing. Sibal said that data is necessary for opinion building which leads to development of better policies for the people. “Long time back, the government thought that it was the sole proprietor for data, it was wrong as this was a hindrance to development,” he said.

The minister added that spatial data is present on the open data platform and many apps can be forwarded from integrating spatial and non-spatial data. “If we integrate data on water and sanitation, we can accurately design sanitation systems according to the condition of water of any area,” he said.
Satyanarayana lauded the open data initiative and said that the presence of data in the public domain will improve functioning of the government and make it more responsible and participatory. “It will kick off innovation in the society and no one knows what app we may bump into which will change the face of governance and become a game changer,” he said.

He also announced an app development competition where participants will have to develop an app using the data present on data.gov.in in six weeks time. He said that the competition will bring in awareness about the website. The competition carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh for the winner and fifty thousand for the person coming in second.

Pitroda said the open data initiative democratised information and invited young people to develop apps on the basis of that data. “The young developers should look at apps that work on the district or even the panchayat level rather than the national level,” he said.