Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh, today inaugurated the dashboard of Data & Strategy Unit of the Department of Science and Technology (DST-DSU) that gives complete insight of DST funding and can drive the process of building, harnessing and augmenting the monitoring, as well as statistical and data analytical capabilities of the department.
“The dashboard is a new beginning that can help ensure maximum transparency, maximum output, and maximum integration and facilitate evidence-based decisions,” said Dr. Singh.
The Union Minister emphasised that this is a step towards the aim of the current government under the leadership of the Prime Minister to bring about real-time monitoring of projects and initiatives as well as their impacts. “It will help us move towards data preparedness,” he added.
He pointed out that improvisation is needed in the initiative to incorporate methods of analysis in the relevant context with the help of dedicated experts in the field. “The factors responsible for a particular outcome will also have to be analysed,” he added.
Dr. Singh suggested that the dashboard should have a process of getting the states on board so they can emulate and learn from each other. “It should also include all other related ministries to form a common dashboard,” he stressed.
The dashboard gives complete insight of DST funding, from spatial distribution of funds to the type of institutions and agencies being funded. It also leads to a kind of active disclosure of agencies funded by DST.
Secretary, DST, Shri S. Chandrasekhar said, Data & Strategy Unit (DSU) is assisted by an Expert Advisory Group consisting of eminent data scientists from academia, public and private sector institutions. DSU also provides opportunity to budding data scientists by engaging them as interns. Ministries/Departments were advised to set up a Data & Strategy Unit (DSU) as a central unit to steer the development and implementation of an action plan or data strategy to improve their data preparedness levels in general and reach DGQI 5.0 scores by December, 2022 in specific.
Secretary, DBT, Dr. Rajesh Gokhle; Secretary. Ministry of Earth Sciences, Dr. M Ravichandran; Additional Secretary & Financial Adviser Shri Vishvajit Sahay; Senior Adviser, DST Dr. Akhilesh Gupta, Head DSU & Chief Controller of Accounts, Ministry of Science & Technology Sh Akhilesh Jha and other senior government officials were present at the launch of the dashboard.
DST-DSU has been creating dashboards for all the schemes of DST since 2017-18. The key roles of the DSU include breaking silos within the Ministry/Department to enable creation of well-integrated monitoring and data systems while ensuring adequate focus on data quality and security. It also encompasses creating mechanisms for regular data analysis within the Ministry/Department to inform policy decisions.
Coordinating with scheme divisions within the Ministry/Department as well as with required external partners such as States, other Ministries/Departments, research organizations, leading private players, and academic institutions for taking necessary steps in the direction is also one of their key responsibilities.
DSU is in the process of developing separate dashboard for each of the programmes of DST to be used as a tool of monitoring and evaluation by the Programme Divisions. It is also useful for the researchers to analyze Govt programs' impact. Till now, dashboards for ten programmes have been created.
There are exclusive dashboards for DST fellowships/awards/scholarships and one dashboard for the fellowships awarded by SERB.
The DSU has also developed monitoring & evaluation plans for all schemes and projects of the department and also provided an in-depth review of the Data Governance Quality Index (DGQI) action plan developed by the Department under the guidance of the NITI Aayog.
