India's population, poverty and consumption data delayed in govt record

 20 government datasets that IndiaSpend analysed, the collection of data or its public release has been delayed for 12 datasets. Crucial data such as from the census, household expenditure and poverty estimates, which influence other data sets and policymaking, are over two years old.

Political manipulation in data releases and a weakened data infrastructure are primary reasons for these delays, experts say. Data which are already available in the public sphere suffer from issues of accessibility, issues related to the format data is available in which impact its usability, and other quality issues.

As the year comes to a close,