Public policy is a fundamental tool for a democratically elected government to achieve its twin goals of ensuring citizen welfare and driving the nation’s socio-economic development.
For this to happen, the process of policymaking must be rooted in evidence. Yet, the idea of evidence-based public policy is often understood too narrowly, reduced to the inner workings of public administration alone. In reality, it is a dynamic and interconnected process, because public policy serves as the vital link between politics, public administration, and the aspirations of citizens.
The political executive, empowered by the people’s mandate, sets the grand vision and strategic priorities. The bureaucracy is then tasked with translating this vision into policies and programs. Increasingly, however, this process is being reshaped and influenced by the digital revolution.
Think of it as a new-age marketplace, built on an enormous data system. The traditional government–citizen model is being reimagined as a demand–supply model for public services.
Earlier, the relationship between government and citizens was rigid and top-down, where the state acted as the sole provider of “one-size-fits-all” services to a largely passive populace. That model is now evolving into a demand–supply framework for public services, one that mirrors the efficiency of platforms like Zomato and Blinkit.
In this new context, citizens are increasingly seen as ‘consumers’ who drive demand for fast, personalized, and efficient services across sectors such as health, education, and livelihoods. Governments, in turn, are under pressure to act as responsive ‘suppliers,’ leveraging data to meet these rising expectations and aspirations.
The crucial infrastructure enabling this shift is data governance. It allows governments to move away from slow-moving bureaucracies and towards dynamic, responsive systems driven by real-time citizen needs.
Seamless, data-driven platforms in the private sector have also fundamentally reshaped public expectations of government services. The efficiency and personalization offered by companies like Zomato and Blinkit have created a new benchmark for what citizens now consider “good service.” As a result, there has been a major shift away from viewing government services as mere entitlements, towards demanding that they be delivered quickly, in a time-bound manner, and even at the doorstep—just like an e-commerce package.
This transformation is evident in initiatives such as Sarkar Aapke Dwar (Government at Your Doorstep) and Aapki Yojna, Aapki Sarkar, Aapke Dwar (Your Scheme, Your Government, at Your Doorstep), which several state governments have launched in recent years in different forms.
But how do you design these programmes to make them truly effective?
This is where evidence-based policy comes in.
To meet this need, the government has introduced several data-driven initiatives. The Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system, for instance, uses a unique ID to ensure that subsidies for schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) directly reach intended beneficiaries, reducing leakages and delays.
In healthcare, the Health Management Information System (HMIS) under the National Health Mission aggregates data from thousands of facilities, making it possible to design targeted campaigns, such as polio vaccination drives in areas with low coverage.
These examples of data-led governance reflect a broader shift, driven by bottom-up pressure from a digitally aware citizenry that is compelling the bureaucracy to modernize its approach to policymaking and service delivery.
From a child’s vaccination records to a farmer’s crop yield, government departments sit on a treasure trove of information. However, the biggest challenge lies in how this data is collected, processed, and managed.
Take the issue of school dropouts. We cannot simply look at data from the education department and expect to find a solution. To truly understand and address the problem, we need a holistic overview that draws on information from multiple departments.
What is a dropout child’s health and nutrition status? Do their families migrate seasonally for work, pulling them out of school? Is the school accessible via all-weather roads? Data related to these questions exists, but it is scattered across departments and stored in silos, making it nearly impossible to form a complete and accurate picture.
Consider another example: Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR). The absence of reliable and real-time district-level data on IMR and MMR creates a serious barrier to designing evidence-based public policy in the health sector.
While national and state-level data are available, they fail to capture the granular reality of health outcomes on the ground. This lack of precise, localized information makes it difficult for policymakers to identify hotspots with high mortality rates, understand the unique socio-demographic reasons behind them, and design targeted interventions.
The future of effective public service hinges on our ability to responsibly manage and govern data. But how do we shift from recognizing this need to actually implementing it?
It begins with a fundamental change in mindset within public institutions and their leaders. Next, there is a need to move beyond the creation of countless dashboards, management information systems (MIS), or departmental portals. These tools are often a symptom of a siloed approach.
What we need instead are comprehensive, integrated, and dynamic data systems where information is usable across its entire lifecycle. Such systems have the potential to foster social and political debate, which in turn can influence both the quality of the data we collect and the way we use it for evidence-based policymaking.
Kumar Ratan is working as a Senior Consultant at Madhya Pradesh Rajya Niti Aayog, and the views expressed here are his own.
TA is a Bhopal-based policy and development consulting group. We are on a mission to make the development space more inclusive and democratic for students and professionals. Join us on this mission.
