New Delhi: The artificial intelligence roadmaps that Union ministries were asked to prepare after this year’s India AI Impact Summit have moved into the assessment stage, with two technical bodies under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) now examining proposals for feasibility, ThePrint has learnt.
The National Informatics Centre (NIC), which maintains the government’s IT infrastructure, and the National e-Governance Division (NeGD) received submissions from ministries, and were asked to check their viability and offer advice on how to take them forward, according to senior MeitY officials, who did not wish to be named.
Of the 90 proposals routed to it, NIC has cleared 47 across ministries, they said. NeGD, separately, has received around 700 assessments and case studies from ministries as part of the same exercise.
The vetting follows a directive issued during the AI summit, held in New Delhi from 16 to 20 February. Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan wrote to secretaries, asking them to detail how AI is currently used in their ministries, identify short-term pilots for quick rollout, and lay out long-term plans to embed the technology in service delivery and administration. Ministries were given a March deadline to submit the roadmaps.
One proposal under review has come from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, which is examining its Parivesh portal—used for environment, forest and wildlife clearances—for AI integration to speed up approvals, a source said. NeGD has held several rounds of consultations with the ministry on the proposal.
The Union Public Service Commission has also submitted proposals, including for facial recognition and other tools, sources said.
Also Read: India hedges against US curbs on frontier AI, parses Washington’s access assurance carefully
Grounds for rejection
Several proposals are being turned down, according to sources, though not on the ground that the underlying idea is unworkable. The reasons cited include a shortage of manpower to execute the project, absence of a clear use case, or a use case considered too niche to justify a dedicated AI deployment.
The pattern has prompted some ministries to move ahead on their own. Rather than waiting on the central vetting, a few departments have directed their in-house technical teams to build and implement the tools themselves, sources said.
To support ministries that do not have the capacity to build in-house, NeGD has empanelled a set of agencies from which departments can draw AI and machine-learning manpower and project-delivery services.
In a Letter of Empanelment dated 22 April, NeGD named six agencies—Cactus Technology Solutions, CoRover, Innefu Labs, Kyndryl Solutions, NEC Corporation India and Tata Consultancy Services—for a two-year period, extendable by one additional year. The empanelment covers two broad modes: deploying individual professionals to augment existing teams, and deploying full teams to deliver defined projects.
The panel comes with a standard rate card for 12 roles, ranging from AI and solution architects, to data engineers and quality-assurance engineers, with monthly rates fixed for each. Central ministries and departments, public sector undertakings and state governments can use the empanelment to award work, with information to NeGD.
For engagements run directly by a department without routing through NeGD, payment terms and performance conditions are to be set by that entity under its own procurement rules, though standard rates apply.
The empanelment was done through a Request for Empanelment floated on the Central Public Procurement Portal, and is part of what MeitY has described as an effort to build a pool of pre-qualified AI partner agencies for use across government.
The roadmap exercise was the second AI-related instruction issued to ministries within a short span. Ahead of the summit, departments were asked to ensure that deputy secretaries attended the event and submitted detailed takeaways. Officials had earlier told ThePrint the twin instructions signalled an effort to mainstream AI in government functioning, rather than treat it as a peripheral exercise.
Alongside roadmap submissions, ministries have begun structured engagements with their IT wings and NIC to map current AI usage, and assess how far it can be scaled. Several are already using generative AI tools to draft internal notes and prepare presentations, while proposals under discussion range from grievance redressal systems to predictive monitoring of welfare schemes.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
Also Read: NIC is building govt’s first AI data centre in Delhi. Parliament, legal databases in the works, too