What is Open Data?

Open Data, by definition means data that is open and that can be freely used, reused and redistributed – subject only, at the most, to the requirement of attribution. Governments collect, process and generate a large amount of data in their day-to-day functioning. Keeping such data in public domain and in machine-readable formats facilitates analysis for better planning of development initiatives and also for measuring the effectiveness of various schemes launched.

Open and machine-readable government data will spur innovation and various types of Apps, mash-ups and services can be built around the published datasets. Since public funds are being used by Governments to collect such data, there has been an increasing demand from civil society to make this data publicly available.

Open Data Policy 2016

Telangana launched its Open Data Policy in September 2016, with a view to bring in transparency, accountability, responsiveness and efficiency in governance, and earned the distinction of only the second State in India to do so. The Telangana State Open Data Policy (TSODP) 2016 outlined the need for building information systems for interoperability and greater information accessibility; assist various departments / institutions to proactively share data in human-readable and machine-readable formats using open standards and under open license; creating a data inventory for each department; creating a negative list etc. Telangana Open Data Policy 2016 takes inspiration from the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP), 2012 and Right to Information Act, 2005. The policy is applicable to all public authorities under the State Government and is being rolled out in a phased manner in departments. The Digital Media Wing is the implementing agency.

Under the initiative, the Telangana Government had launched a dedicated portal – data.telangana.gov.in. It hosts hundreds of datasets and resources and also has APIs for select datasets for ease of access by technology enthusiasts. The Portal has been developed in such a way that journalists, citizens and other stakeholders can use it with ease.

Further, building a vibrant and thriving user community of Technology enthusiasts, Social activists, Journalists, Students and Entrepreneurs interested in solving civic issues using Government data is one of the primary goals of the initiative. To this end, the Open Data team has conducted several events, workshops and hackathons.

View policy

Activities and Outcomes

  • The State Open Data Portal – data.telangana.gov.in – is launched. About 658 datasets are available on the portal on varied areas and subjects. Many of these datasets are updated on a monthly basis
  • Open Data Telangana unit gets data through web services from multiple departments and publishes data to open data portal after cleaning up the data and including relevant metadata.
  • Telangana Rainfall Data at the level of the weather station is available from 2007 to August 2021
  • Open Data is part of a Working group where data is used for various initiatives for Telangana AI4AI projects in collaboration with WEF
  • Data of more than 14000 Factories has also been uploaded and also data related to TS-iPASS, MSME, and Incentives are available on the Open Data Portal.
  • The Open Data initiative ran the ‘Smart Streets Lab’ initiative in association with the World Resources Institute (WRI) and Indian School of Business (ISB)
  • The Open Data Initiative organised several sessions of #OpenGovDataHack
  • Open Transit Data: Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) – Locations of the Stops, Schedules, and Fares for the two routes are provided in Global Transit Feed Specification (GTFS).
  • GTFS data of South Central Railway with stops, stop times, trips information of MMTS is posted on the Open Data Portal.
  • Data related to TSSPDCL – Agriculture, Domestic, EV Charging station, Solar net meters, Industries, and Local bodies street light consumption datasets are available for the last two months.
  • Cropped area, yield, and production datasets are available
  • Daily crop prices from all market yards in Telangana
  • Data related to total vehicle sales, Vehicle registration, dealers, fitness, and life tax datasets are available from 2014 to August 2021
  • We even published datasets related to Telangana Tourism, Domestic and foreign visitors including all Geo location of Tourism hotels.