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.