The National Rainfed Area Authority organized one day national consultation on “Quality Data Generation and Dissemination for Efficient Project Planning and Implementation in Rainfed Areas of India: Addressing Challenges to Remove Bottlenecks” on Tuesday at the NASC Complex, PUSA, New Delhi. The main objective of the consultation was to provide a platform to the research organizations to showcase expertise and information sharing capability and to provide an opportunity to the line departments of the states to express their data needs and challenges being faced by data users in acquiring quality data for effective project planning and implementationfor the inclusive growth and development of rainfed areas of the country. Availability of quality data is a basic need for effective planning of any project. Quality, reliable, and easily accessible data forms the foundation of effective planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of development interventions in rainfed regions. Comprehensive datasets on rainfall, soils, land use, water resources, crop performance, socio-economic conditions, climate risks, watershed characteristics, and natural resources enable policymakers and implementing agencies to identify local priorities, design location-specific interventions, optimize resource allocation, and assess project outcomes with greater accuracy.

Addressing the gathering Dr. Chandra Shekhar Kumar, CEO of NRAA emphasized the importance of accessibility of quality data at end user level. Various schemes and programmes of government being implemented at grassroot level, would be implemented with more impact if related base data are available. The efficiency of ongoing schemes can also be improved based on data of performance of previous schemes. The standardized quality data should be easily accessible to the users to formulate strategies to make the programmes more impactful and outcome oriented. Dr. Kumar narrated that the National Rainfed Area Authority; through this consultation can understand the data needs at grassroot level and provide a platform so that all related state level functionaries could access the desired data to plan effective projects for sustainable development of rainfed areas of the country.

In the consultation two technical session were held to have detailed discussion and inputs from various stakeholders. First session was on data collection and challenges in storage and dissemination. In this session representatives from IMD, NBSSLUP, BISA-IARI, IWMI, MNCFC and CRIDA presented the datasets being generated and maintained by them. The second session was on data requirements for project planning and bottlenecks in acquisition by users. In this session participants from different states viz. Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, Panjab, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar etc. participated actively and raised their concerns on data accessibility.

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