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Indian commercial and non-commercial water users as well as foreign entities can now access all unclassified data on the IndiaWRIS (web-based Water Resources Information System) website.
However, for unclassified data, commercial Indian and foreign users will have to pay a fee of Rs 75,000 per site annually. Also, the classified data will be released for specific purpose/study only and will be non-transferable.
This is part of the Hydro-Meteorological Data Dissemination Policy (2013), released by the Ministry of Water Resources, here on Monday, The policy came after growing demand by the community that data collected by using public funds be made readily available to all.
The policy was put in place after the recommendations of the National Water Policy (2012) for placing all hydrological data, other than those classified on national security consideration, in the public domain. The Ministry had formulated a draft policy, which was released for comments on March 7, 2013. “Based on the comments received, the Hydro-meteorological Data Dissemination Policy (2013) has been modified and finalised,” a Ministry statement said.
The data dissemination policy (2013) provides for hosting of all unclassified data (after validation and to the extent published in Water Year Book, Water Quality Year Book, Water Sediment Year Book, Ground Water Year Book) on IndiaWRIS, which can be downloaded by any web-registered user free of cost.
The policy also has a list of Central Water Commission engineers, who will be the custodian of hydro-meteorological data of river basins. Similarly, Central Ground Water Board Regional Director concerned, shall be the custodian of groundwater data.
A Classified Data Release Committee will soon be set up to examine all requests for release of such data, which include the Indus basin and other rivers and their tributaries discharging into Pakistan and Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin and other rivers and their tributaries discharging in to Bangladesh/Mynmar.
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