The ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) is inviting proposals to conduct a third-party study of its Corporate Data Management (CDM) scheme, which converts company filings on the MCA21 portal into a tool for policymaking, regulation and research. The study will assess the scheme’s effectiveness, relevance, impact, and user satisfaction, while also analysing its security and access control mechanisms.
Evaluating the scheme’s impact
Experts said the request for proposal (RFP) would evaluate the scheme’s impact, identify operational and strategic gaps, and recommend measures for its long-term sustainability. “This is a move towards aiding government for decision making, proactive policy review and providing all stakeholders a logically and analytically derived data for research,” said Anjali Malhotra, partner (regulatory) at Nangia Andersen LLP.
According to the RFP document, the selected agency will conduct consultations with ministry officials and data users, review budget allocations, perform cost-benefit analyses, and explore potential revenue-generating opportunities for the CDM system.
All about Corporate Data Management (CDM) scheme
Launched in FY16, the CDM is an in-house data mining and analytics platform that links with the MCA21 portal by transforming statutory filings into a statistical data warehouse. The system was developed because, although the ministry was collecting large volumes of information from the corporate sector, much of it remained untapped since the data was stored in static documents.
The MCA also receives regular requests for authentic company-level information from government bodies, non-government organisations, research institutes, and individual scholars. To address this, the CDM undertakes data cleaning, pre-processing, mining, analytics, and rectification of misreported company data.
Over the years, the CDM has evolved into an analytical hub for the ministry, offering data-driven insights for macroeconomic analysis, stronger enforcement, and innovative research. “CDM has also been ensuring regular data sharing for calculation of national indicators such as GVA and GDP, and catering to data requests of stakeholders,” the document said.