The Local Self-Government Department (LSGD) has constituted an expert data management team to analyse the vast amounts of data from across the State on the COVID-19 pandemic-related activities being carried out by local bodies to prioritise effective intervention.
Right from the early stages, local bodies have anchored the State’s COVID-19 resistance activities on the ground, from managing quarantining at home and in institutions to running of community kitchens to the running of COVID first-line treatment centres (FLTCs) now.
Handling and analysing effectively the data regarding all this can be a tough ask. The data management team, consisting of researchers and faculty from the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA), has been constituted to focus on this task.
Making projections
Sarada Muralidharan, Principal Secretary, Local Self-Government, told The Hindu that the data analytics team will help the department make projections and flag things that need to be paid attention to.
“At any point in time, we have at our disposal more than 5,000 data points which we need to look through. It is convenient if we have a dedicated system. The Information Kerala Mission has been handling all the data, but their primary responsibility is management of software and report generation. When the nature of the spread is getting slightly alarming, we need to be very clear about what is happening everywhere, identify specific trouble spots and to make arrangements,” said Ms.Muralidharan.
She said this number crunching had to be done on a daily basis as the situation, from containment zones to clusters was changing daily.
Cross-checking
The primary responsibilities of the data management team include collection and consolidation of all reports related to COVID-19 from the local level. They also do error rectification in reports by validation and cross-checking of suspicious figures or cases of not reporting. The team has to identify lags in specific local bodies in the setting up of FLTCs or other facilities or in making all necessary arrangements in these facilities.
