The government has launched a web portal that integrates the statistics of all three levels of government in a single platform. The portal is expected to help strengthen the country’s database system and track the performance of government agencies even at the local level.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli inaugurated the web portal with the address nationaldata.gov.np amid a programme on Sunday. The National Planning Commission and the Central Bureau of Statistics collaborated to prepare the web portal. According to the National Planning Commission, the portal has been developed as part of the government’s initiative to create an effective database for planning and monitoring.

Speaking at the inaugural programme, Suman Aryal, director general of the bureau, said the government had targeted to increase access to the country’s overall statistics under a single platform through the portal. According to Aryal, the newly launched portal features three platforms.

“Integrating the data of all the seven provinces and 753 local governments with the central government, increasing access to the national data system and monitoring and evaluation are among the major three aspects of the portal,” said Aryal adding that the platform helps users to search the segregated data of each local government separately.

As per the bureau, users can access the portal via two gateways—geographic and thematic. Under the geographic gateway, users can have access to segregated data of the country under headings such as biodiversity, environment and geography. Using the thematic gateway, users can retrieve data kept under a number of specified areas such as population, culture, art or macroeconomic indicators like inflation rate and trade situation, among others, of all three tiers of government.

Aryal said the bureau had planned to integrate the entire data of government bodies in the common website by the mid-July.

“We have been devising the working guideline and will provide training to officials of all government bodies by mid-May.”

Currently, the government maintains records under 100 indicators and 1,100 sub-indicators. Laxman Aryal, secretary of the National Planning Commission, said the portal would also help the government develop an effective budget transfer mechanism at the local level.

According to him, login IDs will be provided to local governments to allow them to upload their statistics instantly.