Alternate data sources, frontier technologies critical for policy making: Prof Ajay Sood

New Delhi, June 7 Alternate data sources and frontier technologies are increasingly becoming critical for policy making, according to Professor Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Advisor to the government, who emphasised the need for best policy which blends both traditional and alternative data sources.

These high frequency indicators are more dynamic and offer timely insights, enabling policies to be more agile and responsive, he said during an event here, organised by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), in collaboration with NITI Aayog and the World Bank.

“While traditional data sources reflect where we have been, the alternate data sources indicate where we are heading. He added that though alternate data sources provide real time information at a much granular level, they cannot replace tradition data sources,” said Professor Sood.

The event was attended by over 450 participants from central ministries, state governments, international organisations including the World Bank, academic and research institutions, and private sector entities.

Professor Sood further highlighted various use cases where alternate data sources have been effectively used. He stressed on the need for collaboration between government, academia, researchers, industry and international organizations for effective use of new technologies.

Professor Sood also called for ethical deployment of AI and said that data security and privacy concerns cannot be compromised. Further, he asserted that the development of techno-legal framework for Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is a gift of India to the world.

Professor Abhay Karandikar, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, said the policy-making process is a complex exercise which involve gathering of data, consultation with stakeholders and drawing insights.

“AI/ML has facilitated timely processing of data for designing actionable policies. In this age and time, challenge is not to collect data but how to make sense of the data. The real challenge lies in addressing issues relating to data privacy, data security, regulatory framework, and institutional readiness,” he noted.

Dr Saurabh Garg, Secretary, MoSPI, emphasised on the need of fostering collaboration with various stakeholders for developing a robust statistical system to address the data needs for policy making.

He expected that in next 3-6 months, MoSPI will be able to implement some of the use cases that have been identified to harness alternate data sources and the application of frontier technologies.

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