Proper sata sharing can help deliver better services: UIDAI

With expansion in digitisation and huge volumes of information generation, proper sharing of data and its analysis can deliver benefits at various levels by creating information conduits, according to the Unique Identification Authority of India.

In a report 'Analytics: Empowering Operation, the UIDAI Experience', the body said that reporting and analytics also increase transparency of the system both internally and externally and help in improved delivery of services by institutions.

"Government programmes stand to further gain by the usage of analytics and reporting. With the move to digitisation in many programmes, huge amounts of data are getting generated.

"Having a clear analytics and reporting strategy in place can ensure this data is harnessed and used to improve operations and delivery of services," the report said.
While reporting is the process of sharing data related to an organisation with key stakeholders, analytics could be defined as the structured process of analysing the data to derive insights that help operations.

The government runs public service programmes that are huge in scale and which require complex implementation on the ground. In last few years, several large scale projects like the MNREGA and National rural Health Mission have been launched.
"Government programmes are characterised by complexity and challenges on the ground... usage of analytics and reporting helps meet some of these," it said.

Data analysis can be also used at a strategic level to shape and execute public policy priorities where their applications are directly addressed to citizens.
"Government stands to gain among the most by using data and analysis; to not just execute programs, but also to better execute public policy priorities in resident facing applications.

"For example if we analyse public grievances in a city and find that biggest complaints are about water logging, appropriate resources can be directed to focus on drainage," it said.

Elaborating further, the report said that UIDAI experience over past two and half years suggest that analytics and reporting delivers concrete benefits "helping move decision making from 'intuition based' to 'data based'."

The Nandan Nilekani-headed UIDAI, attached to the Planning Commission, is tasked with providing residents of India a unique identification number 'Aadhaar' linked to the residents' demographic and biometric information.

The project began issuing Aadhaar numbers in September 2009, and as of January this year had already issued more than 11 million Aadhaar numbers.

According to the report by UIDAI, a key starting point in creation of the anayltics or reporting function is to ensure that Business Intelligence (BI) systems are part of the overall IT architecture design and strategy.

"Hardware requirements for analytics and reporting need to be addressed separately since it is typically among the most compute intensive sub-system. It is recommended that the Data Warehouse storage and processing hardware be created independently, rather than using live production systems for reporting," the report said.

It also emphasised upon inclusion of BI tools and software for visual analytics and data security. The report said that for big projects like the ones undertaken by the UIDAI, behavioural challenges are as vital as challenges of technology.

"Senior leadership support is critical to the successful implementation of this transition. Implementing this requires a carefully thought out, phased transition plan that is a combination of short term and long term milestones," it said.

Last week, the long-running tussle between the Planning Commission and the Home Ministry over security concerns of the Unique Identification Number project was resolved with the government extending the mandate for UIADI to collect bio-metric data of additional 40 crore residents.

The data collected will be used to issue chip-based smart cards in the country through the National Population Register (NPR) project. Under the formula, worked out at the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Nandan Nilekani-led authority will collect data of 60 crore residents in 16 states and Union Territories. It has already been mandated to cover 20 crore people.

The bio-metric data for remaining population of over 60 crore will be covered under the Home Ministry's NPR project.