🔬 Data Methodology & Quality Framework
ڈیٹا اکٹھا کرنے اور جانچنے کا شفاف طریقہ کار
Aaj Ka Rate operates as a structured price data platform and market search engine. This document details our 12-point data governance pipeline from ingestion to publication.
1. Source Selection
We exclusively ingest data from identified statutory regulatory bodies (OGRA, SBP), official municipal gazettes (District Commissioner Price Control Committees), and established industry trade associations (APJA Bullion Committee). Unofficial social media rumors or unverified blog posts are strictly excluded.
2. Ingestion & Fetching
Automated pipelines query source APIs and public gazette feeds daily between 05:00 AM and 08:30 AM PKT following wholesale Mandi auctions. Ingestion logs record HTTP response codes, payload integrity, and collection timestamps.
3. Parsing & Decryption
Where government endpoints employ symmetric encryption (AES-256-CBC) to prevent unauthorized scraping, our ingestion engine securely decrypts payloads using authorized decryption keys before normalizing record structures.
4. Strict Zero-Speculation & Missing Value Rule
If an auction is rained out, a district fails to issue a daily gazette, or an item is seasonal/unavailable, the system stores null internally and outputs “—” in English or “کوئی قیمت نہیں” in Urdu. We never invent prices, fabricate averages, or interpolate missing numbers.
5. Unit Standardization & Conversions
Traditional Pakistani agricultural units are preserved as first-class citizens. Wholesale grain auctions quoted in Maunds (من / 40 kg) are converted to standard kilograms using the exact ratio 1 Maund = 40.0 kg. Gold bullion is presented in Tolas (11.664 grams), Mashas, and Rattis with LBMA parity.
6. Official Ceiling vs. Market Price Classification
The platform explicitly distinguishes between:
• Official Notified Ceiling (DC Gazette): Statutory maximum rate enforceable under the Price Control Act.
• Wholesale Mandi Bidding: Morning open-cry auction prices in primary produce markets.
• Open Market Retail: Estimated consumer shop prices including transport and retail wastage margins.
7. Outlier Detection
Any reported price exhibiting a variance greater than ±40% compared to the 7-day regional rolling average triggers an automated integrity flag. Anomalous records are quarantined for manual verification before public display.
8. Historical Data Archiving
Daily price snapshots are permanently committed into historical time-series archives. This allows reproducible 7-day and 30-day percentage calculations without requiring separate date-stamped URLs.
9. Freshness Tracking
Every published rate displays its collection timestamp. Rates older than 24 hours are clearly badged as Aging, and those exceeding 72 hours are badged as Historical. Cached data is never masqueraded as live data.
10. Wheat vs. Atta Disambiguation
We distinguish raw wheat grain (گندم) from milled wheat flour (آٹا). The Punjab DC gazette reports 10kg Atta bags. We do not synthesize raw grain prices from flour ceiling rates. Raw wheat grain is reported under its own Passco/Provincial procurement framework.
11. Data Corrections & Revisions
When a District Administration issues a midday corrigendum or revised notification, the updated rate is committed with an explicit revision note. Historical source logs are preserved for audit transparency.
12. Independent Public Positioning
Aaj Ka Rate is an independent price monitoring and consumer intelligence service. We do not represent any government ministry. Official consumer grievance helplines (e.g. Punjab Consumer Helpline 0800-02345) are provided on every district page for citizen reporting.