Delhi govt working to formulate policy to strengthen data management

The policy seeks to establish a framework for the collection, processing, sharing, and protection of data

The Delhi government is working on a policy to strengthen data management across departments and ensure compliance with the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, passed in 2023 to regulate how organisations collect and use digital personal data, officials said on Thursday.

The policy has been described as a compliance enabler.

The policy, described as a “compliance enabler”, seeks to establish a common framework for the collection, processing, sharing, protection and management of data at the Delhi government level. Officials said it is aligned with the DPDP Act, 2023, the DPDP Rules, 2025, which operationalised it, and the advisories of the National Data Governance Committee.

The State Data Governance Committee (SDGC) will serve as the apex policy body for data governance in the Delhi government. The chief secretary will chair it and will include senior secretaries from departments, including finance, planning, urban development, health and family welfare, and education. The committee is to meet every quarter, according to the proposal.

The policy proposes departmental data governance committees (DDGCs) headed by the respective heads of departments. These committees will be responsible for managing departmental datasets and implementing the state’s data governance framework, officials said.

Delhi’s Department of Information Technology (DoIT) will act as the nodal agency. It will oversee operational components, including the state data exchange layer (SDEL), which allows data to be shared without duplication and the need for centralisation, the consent management system, state data catalogue and a central compliance dashboard, officials said.

The framework envisions a team of data stewards handling areas such as data accuracy, processing permissions, metadata tagging, and citizen grievances.

The proposed policy is built around nine thematic pillars: governance and institutional framework, privacy and security, legal and regulatory compliance, secure interoperability and data sharing, data lifecycle management and classification, citizen rights and multilingual grievance redressal, annual data quality index and monitoring, capacity building and change management, and AI and emerging technology governance.

The government has proposed a series of immediate implementation measures, including circulars directing departments to comply with the DPDP framework, appointment of nodal officers and committees, adoption of standard data-sharing protocols, standard operating procedures and a state data exchange architecture.

Under the compliance framework, every department must nominate a DPDP nodal/grievance officer and conduct a data mapping and inventory exercise. This will involve identifying the personal data collected by departments, its purpose, storage, and access.

The policy envisions periodic audits, compliance reviews, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, along with privacy-by-design principles.

A separate state data exchange platform is proposed to facilitate inter-departmental data sharing, with integration planned with platforms including API Setu, DigiLocker, Entity Locker, NAPIX, BharatX, AI Kosh and NDAP. The integration target has been set for July 2027, officials said.