Census Department launches LankaSIS

By Gamini Warushamana

Accurate statistics is an essential asset for developing countries because statistics are the guidelines in implementing development programs, said the Korean Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Won-sam Chang at the launch of LankaSIS, the Sri Lanka statistical information service of the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) last week in Colombo.

He said that from the early stages of development, the Republic of Korea recognised the importance of accurate and timely updated data for economic development. "As a result, today, we have a well developed statistical sector and we have shared our expertise, experience and technology with countries such as the Philippines, Kazakhstan and Vietnam."

Through this project we will help Sri Lanka to improve its statistical system, he said.

The Government of Korea launched this project in August and in phase I of the project, the setting up of the Statistical Database Management System (SDMS) for Sri Lanka was completed with the financial and technical co-operation of the office of the Commissioner of the Statistics Korea (KOSTAT).

Phase II of the project focused on capacity-building and HR development of the DCS and will be completed in 2015. Phase III of the project will focus on system development and will be implemented in 2016.

The Director General of DCS, D.C.A. Gunawardane said that LankaSIS is aone-stop-shop for statistical data users and the new system has solved most of the issues faced by data users and is a user-friendly system.

All the data is supplied from a centralised database. There are a large number of data users locally and internationally and in the past both parties, the DCS and the data users were frustrated, due to the inconvenience of supplying data in the form that users needed and the inconvenience and delay faced by data users.

Through LankaSIS we have solved these issues, he said. Gunawardena said that the total investment on the project which will be completed in 2017 is US$ 4 million.

KOSTAT will support DCS to implement mid and long-term development plans, develop strategies for strengthening human resources and training in Sri Lanka.

It also includes training in Korea for high level and working level officials and training instructors.

A training centre will be set up at the DCS and provided with equipment and lecture rooms, he said.

"Before setting up this new system, the DCS did not have a centralised database and data was stored in different forms. Today, we use a manual data collection process and it is costly and inefficient because it involves a lot of steps such as collection and transportation of documents and the data entry process," Gunawardena said.

"In the last census we used scanning methods for data entry. We hope to introduce a computer-based data collection system that eliminates paper work and improves efficiency in data processing under this project," he said.