Niti Aayog lays out data quality road map to stop leakages, increase efficiency

The Niti Aayog on Tuesday said fiscal leakage and erroneous or duplicate beneficiary records due to poor quality data drain budgets and inflate welfare outlays by an estimated 4-7%.

In the third edition of its quarterly insights series, Future Front, titled 'India's Data Imperative: The Pivot Towards Quality', the government's think tank called for fixing ownership for data at all levels, ensuring interoperability of data and incentivising quality data rather than quantity to fortify digital governance, cultivate public trust, ensure efficient service delivery and reduce leakages in the system.

" Policy blind spots, inconsistent, non-standardised datasets distort evidence, leading to mis-targeted schemes or delayed course-corrections," the report said. "Public trust erosion, citizens confronting mismatched records, rejected claims, or endless rectification queues lose confidence in digital governance."

The report, prepared by the Aayog in partnership with Hyderabad-based data science company Gramener, outlined challenges in data use across the entire value chain including storage, use, sharing and retirement of data.

"Quality suffers when data has no clear owner. The fix lies in assigning stewardship, not just for compliance, but for ongoing care," it said, suggesting designating data custodians at each level (national, state, district) who are empowered and accountable for data health.