Big data as catalyst for urban service delivery

Abstract

Various service providing departments globally are opening up the data that gets collected in their respective service areas as a public resource. It is getting established that this Open Data can be used to identify socioeconomic trends and improve public services leading to economic growth. McKinsey in 2013, published a report titled “Open data—Unlocking innovation and performance with liquid information”, which identified more than $3 trillion in economic value globally that could be generated each year through enhanced use of Open data. (Open data: unlocking innovation and performance with liquid information, 2013 [1]). The sets of such information on one side are an avenue for revenue for the service provider departments and on the other side, while this happening interdepartmental data exchange also has a potential to bring a transformation in service delivery. This paper explores the extents to which this can be leveraged under Digital India Program.