In era of AI, ‘chalta hai' attitude towards data quality won't work: Niti Aayog CEO

Indian Express

6 hours ago

Calling for greater focus on ensuring high-quality data, Niti Aayog Chief Executive Officer BVR Subrahmanyam on Tuesday said a 'chalta hai' attitude will not work especially in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) where data is used as an input.
'India is heavy as far as digitalisation is concerned. We have got the JAM (Jan Dhan Yojna, Aadhar, mobile) trinity, UPI, the account aggregator framework, ONDC. India is one of the leaders in the world in applying digital technologies in day-to-day life… If UPI had been invented 40 years ago, three big companies wouldn't have existed: Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.'
'So, India has a fantastic foundation to take a futuristic leap. But the problem is that this 'chalta hai' attitude, where we are OK with things which are 80 per cent OK, a first division, or a distinction… The problem with data is that it has to be 100 per cent (correct),' Subrahmanyam said at the release of a Niti Aayog report titled India's Data Imperative: The Pivot Towards Quality.
Citing his past work as a joint secretary in the Prime Minister's Office on the disbursal of LPG subsidies under the PAHAL scheme, Subrahmanyam said even if 95 per cent of transfers were successful, 5 per cent bouncing back would mean lakhs of people would not get the subsidy. 'In India, we can't go by percentages; we will have to go to the Japanese quality level of 0.0001 per cent. That is the level you need… That's where data quality becomes important.'
'We are now entering the era of AI. We are mining data to get intelligent inputs. But if our data is bad — anyway a lot of these things hallucinate — then they will hallucinate on bad data, which is even worse. So, data quality is extremely important. We need to move from good enough to high confidence. We need to be very confident about the quality of data that is there,' he added.
In its report, the Niti Aayog highlighted the problems caused by even small errors, such as pensions getting blocked due to a single wrong digit during Aadhaar enrolment. Subrahmanyam cited his own name as an example, which did not conform to the first name-second name format, and said he was a 'victim of data'.
'No two things which I have, have the same name; somewhere it is BVR Subrahmanyam, somewhere it is Bhamidipati. So my demat account is currently locked. Half my bank accounts are locked because I can't do KYC. My Aadhaar does not match my government ID, my government ID does not match my pensioner card. Believe it or not, as many IDs I have, I have as many bank accounts,' the Niti CEO said. 'It is digital death if you have one item wrongly fit. In the modern world, you are dead because everything is transacted online.'
The report said incorrect entries had to be stopped through automated checks and standard pick-lists, with every high-value dataset requiring a specific 'steward' with the authority to correct and improve records on a constant basis. Further, to ensure the seamless movement of data across agencies, a common framework for people, places, and programmes needs to be adopted. 'Together, these three practices turn today's fragmented information into a reliable asset that analytics, AI, and service delivery can use without sacrificing trust,' the report said, adding that 'good' data should be accurate, complete, consistent, timely, valid, and unique.
Speaking at the launch of the Niti report, Saurabh Garg, Secretary in the Ministry of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), said the ministry had last week met 30 other ministries on the issue of data quality.
'We are focusing a lot more on what has been traditionally called administrative data… That data can really help if we are able to ensure that it is interoperable, that it is harmonised in the sense that it follows certain basic structures so that citizens' delivery of services improves,' Garg said.
Siddharth Upasani is a Deputy Associate Editor with The Indian Express. He reports primarily on data and the economy, looking for trends and changes in the former which paint a picture of the latter. Before The Indian Express, he worked at Moneycontrol and financial newswire Informist (previously called Cogencis). Outside of work, sports, fantasy football, and graphic novels keep him busy.
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