The data protection law that sets up a framework for data-driven innovation and entrepreneurship is expected to come into force in the next few months, said Gopalakrishnan S, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) on Monday.

Inaugurating the 'Big Data and Analytics Conclave 2018' orgainsed by FICCI in association with MeitY, the official said a robust data protection policy to ensure a free and fair digital Indian economy is on the anvil.

Gopalakrishnan said that the law would aim at restricting the misuse and abuse of personal data to ensure a free and fair digital Indian economy. 

He said there was a need for large volumes of data in various languages for which data exchange is imperative. The IT Ministry was working on it and the facility would soon be ready for use. 

R Vimala, Chief Executive Office, Maharashtra State Rural Livelihoods Mission (MSRLM), underlined the need for collection of data appropriately and analysing it judiciously for the benefit of the people in rural India. D

ata analytics has a major role to play in empowering and enriching the lives of the vast sea of people in the villages, she added.

Lovneesh Chanana, Vice President, Digital Government, SAP India, gave the industry perspective on accelerating value creation through intelligent technologies.

He highlighted the need for creation of a Multi stakeholder dialogue to drive artificial intelligence in India and pointed to strategic areas of focus such as research and innovation, work organisation and redesign, skilling and cyber security etc.

He said that the digital era is evolving into an intelligence era. Dwelling on the extent of skill availability in companies for digital transformation, he said that there was substantial skill gap in all the skill domains in the digital space. This was true especially for digital mega trends such as IoT, Artificial Intelligence and big Data Analytics.

Avik Sarkar, Head ? Data Analytics Cell, NITI Aayog, while emphasising the critical role of data analytics in transforming the lives of the people said that the data analytics journey for India had just begun as the reliance was merely on primary surveys earlier.

Nirankar Saxena, Deputy Secretary General, FICCI, urged industry and the government to evolve a mechanism to serve the common man and initiate steps to use the mechanism to empower the developing world as a protocol.