Data cleaning is a crucial step in ensuring the accuracy, consistency, efficiency, reliability, relevance, interpretability, and optimization of data-driven analyses and models. It involves identifying and correcting errors and inconsistencies in datasets to improve their quality. Poorly cleaned or uncleaned data can compromise the validity of exploratory data analysis (EDA) results, leading to suboptimal or erroneous downstream decisions. By addressing issues such as accuracy, consistency, efficiency, reliability, relevance, interpretability, and optimization, data cleaning sets a solid foundation for any data-driven endeavor.