The Health Intelligence System has to provide information for the planning, monitoring and evaluation of the Health Services which are provided by the Health Care Delivery System in the country. The Health Intelligence System should also be in a position to provide information on the health needs and demands of the community so that the Health Care Delivery System can plan to meet the unmet demands and needs. Information available is quite often incorrect, incomplete and out dated. Appreciable improvements can be effected only on the basis of a critical appraisal of the system. Some of the important reasons are lack of training, aptitude and sense of involvement in the work by the staff, improper reporting proformae, enforcement of targets, absence of discrimination between routine and special health intelligence, quantitative and qualitative data and lack of systematic & regular supervision by health administrators particularly at the district level. Suggestions for improvement are better utilization of collected data, simplification of proformae, adequate training to the staff in health intelligence, realistic variability of targets, integration of health intelligence for various components of the health care delivery system, bifurcation of data into two i.e., simple routine use and for use for special purposes and regular and systematic supervision and make suggestions for taking top level decisions. The major gaps and other problems listed in this paper and the suggestions made to overcome these are of such nature that these have to be considered at top levels and decisions taken, preferably on the basis of the observations and recommendations of a study group of experts set up for the purpose. Until some basic changes are made, the Health Intelligence System will continue to be thoroughly inadequate for proper planning, monitoring and evaluation of the Health Care Delivery System.