Sujalam Bharat Policy to Strengthen Rural Drinking Water Data Governance

Key facts

• The Ministry of Jal Shakti issued a policy on data sharing, interoperability, and stakeholder access under the Sujalam Bharat Digital Public Infrastructure.
• The policy aims to establish a secure and accountable framework for sharing and governing rural drinking water data.
• It provides for governed and interoperable data exchange among the department, states, Union Territories, gram panchayats, government organisations, and authorised stakeholders.
• It aims to strengthen panchayat-centric governance, citizen participation, grievance redressal, participatory asset monitoring, and accountability.
• It includes provisions on privacy, personal data protection, cybersecurity, data classification, access governance, and public-interest safeguards.
• It adopts a tiered data-access framework to ensure secure, responsible, and purpose-limited use of information.