Bottom-up approach of development on Wednesday got much-needed boost as the department of Planning and Development released social sector statistics of Jharkhand and a software, JharStats, to provide insight into various indicators of growth for better and effective planning in future. The factsheet and software have been prepared by Unicef-Jharkhand and it presents ground realities in the State.
The software covers nine segments and provides data on 168 indicators based on the primary sources like the census data, service delivery statistics, budget information, sentinel surveillance besides similar surveys done for different segments from time-to-time. The factsheet, as it has been released, is a standalone application, however, the department of Planning and Development is likely to embed a link to the software for district project officers to help in proper implementation of projects.
“We can use the data and analyse it to ascertain whether the projects which were conceived with a purpose has actually met or not. We will provide a link to the software on the department’s website as well,” said Principal Secretary of Planning and Development, Arun Kumar Singh.
Development Commissioner, RS Poddar stressed upon expanding the scope of the factsheet to include new indicators in future to give a clear picture of the ground realities to the policy makers and also decentralisation of the flow of information to make for the time lag in compiling fresh data that will make it more close to real time and thus will help in timely policy formulation. The database forms a base for trapping financial information with regard to institutions and individuals on a number of parameters skill set being one of them.
“The database can be updated in future to include details of banks working at panchayat level, the number of people professionally skilled and unskilled and the number of persons paying taxes. The process of updating records should be decentralised and districts should be allowed to update data,” added Poddar. The database has given a ray of hope to policy planners who keep on going back on drawing board to adjust the policies as sometimes warranted by the situations and most of the time fail to address policy concerns in the absence of details at fingertips. The availability of data could be used to amend policies as and when required.
“The database can help us in understanding the kind of intervention needed in a policy. Different indicators can be correlated to understand what should be done have a maximum impact of a project,” said Vice-chairperson, State Planning Board, AK Sarkar. On the occasion, officials were optimistic that the data can be used in a much better way with political stability in the State and that the department of Planning and Development can fulfill the aspirations of people as a result of political stability and availability of reliable data.