Hi Goutham
I tried accessing the archived versions of the older input survey website on
web.archive.org (a website that automatically and randomly archives webpage over the internet) thinking that maybe one could get access to the data from there. But unfortunately, the data on that old website was available on a dynamic webpage (i.e. the user needed to enter a query and then the data would be returned) because of which no version of the actual data could be archived.
I think, going forward, it is a suggestion to everyone on this group that whenever and wherever you see useful public data sets like this behind dynamic web pages on Indian government websites, please extract them and archive them on github or some other data repository (this isn't something new and has been done for several other data sets in the past). Such data sets (especially micro data at the district level, like the input survey) are extremely useful for research purposes and must remain publicly accessible. But because government websites can't really be relied upon, it is our responsibility as data enthusiasts to help them remain publicly accessible.
As for the input survey, since the new website is almost exactly the same as the old one, my guess is that their links to the data set are not working right now because they are in a phase of migration and most probably this is a temporary friction. But whenever that gets resolved, please seriously consider archiving all waves of their data set for future public use, because such a situation can arise again.
Thanks and regards.
Yours sincerely
Shiv Hastawala
(He/His/Him)
Doctoral Student
Department of Economics
Binghamton University (State University of New York)