http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7092526.stm
Last Updated: Tuesday, 13 November 2007, 17:29 GMT
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India collecting data on villages
By Sunil Raman
BBC News, Delhi
Villagers in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (Pic:
Geeta Pandey)
Information on the real condition of rural India is
still lacking
India has launched a comprehensive data collection
exercise for each of its more than half a million
villages.
The move is aimed at updating the government's
information about social and economic indicators for
each village to ensure better development.
At present governments depend on traditional forms of
data collection and most of the villages are not
connected to the internet.
About 70% of India's billion-plus people live in
villages.
Backward districts
Samina Makhija, project director of the data
collection programme, told the BBC that although the
initiative was thought of in the 1980s, financial
constraints had delayed the project.
Information about villages is available but it is all
scattered and "comprehensive information" had to be
made available in a "single place", she said.
Ms Makhija refused to reveal the project cost but said
it had been re-started at the behest of the
government-run Planning Commission.
"We have invited private individuals, researchers,
non-government organisations and institutes to join in
data collection," Ms Makhija said, and added that for
each village for which data was collected, 3,000
rupees would be paid.
The 28 districts selected to flag off the pilot
project were the most backward districts in the
country.
The data collectors will gather information about the
geographical features of a village, its
infrastructure, schools and hospitals, number of
toilets, access to roads, gender data and even
information about the power consumption of the entire
village.
A pilot project has already begun in a number of
villages in the states of Haryana, Orissa, Karnataka
and Goa.
This project seeks to use India's achievements in the
IT sector to map out every village on a website.
At present governments depend on local village
councils and administrative heads for information
about a village.
Exactly 60 years after India became independent,
officials say information on the real condition of
rural India is lacking.
More than half a million villages will be covered over
the next six months and data collected will be posted
on the National Information Centre's website to be
accessible to both the administration and local
people.
Officials say they hope that this exercise will
improve available information to carry out development work.
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