One of the most powerful capabilities of Artificial Intelligence is to leverage the power of Linguistics and Computer Science for enabling interaction between humans and computers. The central and state governments in India are proactively using Natural Language Processing (NLP) for multiple initiatives, right from catalysing COVID-19 solutions to promoting digital payments in the country. Read on to find out more.

• AskDISHA for railways enquiries: Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) became the first ever public sector enterprise to deploy an AI-powered chatbot on its portal in October 2018. AskDISHA (Digital Interaction to Seek Help Anytime), a chatbot powered by CoRover, answers queries pertaining to various services offered by IRCTC. It can answer user queries on ticket reservation, refund status, PNR search, cancellations, probability of ticket confirmation, as well as other travel and tourism offerings of the Indian Railways subsidiary. AskDISHA has also received the Asia Leadership Award for Innovation Using Technology 2019 for being the first chatbot for any government organization in India.
• Translating SC judgements to vernacular languages: The Supreme Court has been translating orders and rulings into vernacular languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi, Marathi, Malayalam, Bangla, Telugu, Kannada, Nepali and Urdu with the help of Artificial Intelligence. So far, they have translated at least 300 documents, with the majority being available in Hindi. Started in July 2019, this initiative focuses on enabling better access towards justice to the litigants by providing them with access to knowledge so that they have the ability to independently take decisions, with more freedom from a lawyer. Documents such as civil disputes, criminal matters, landlord-tenant disputes, matrimonial issues etc. are being prioritised and the translated judgements are being published online, on the SC’s official website. Read more...
• India's AI-enabled COVID-19 WhatsApp helpdesk: India deployed the world’s largest WhatsApp chatbot – MyGov Corona Helpdesk – in record time of five days to aid our fight against the pandemic by disseminating timely and right information. It is a 24/7 helpdesk developed by Haptik that has been handling millions of diverse queries in both English and Hindi. Since its launch in March 2020, the helpdesk has successfully catered to over 25 million users with over 36 million queries. Read more...
• MyGov Saathi Chatbot: With the country in the midst of COVID-19, Digital India in collaboration with Accenture and Microsoft launched a chatbot named MyGov Saathi, to enable citizen communication. The bot uses AI and natural language processing to understand customer questions and provide appropriate responses. The bot doesn’t just give short answers to questions – it directs residents to webpages with comprehensive information. Initially started in English, it has now been expanded the bot to Hindi and other regional languages so that it can reach more citizens in a personal, direct way. Currently, the bot has around 250,000 monthly users, and daily active sessions range from a few hundred to a few thousand, with total active sessions over a 16-day period nearing 600,000.
• PAi for promoting digital payments: National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched an AI based virtual assistant – Pai ­– to improve digital financial inclusion in India. The chatbot works round the clock for assisting users with accurate information on NPCI products like FASTag, RuPay, UPI, AePS. Developed by Bengaluru based startup CoRover, PAi is intended to help increase the adoption of digital payments among Indian citizens. Read more...
• AI chatbot provides information on 1,400 public services in Maharashtra: The Government of Maharashtra, in partnership with Haptik (a conversational Al platform) announced in March 2019 a new AI-powered chatbot called “Aaple Sarkar Bot”. The chatbot provides information and helps with queries on healthcare, education, public utilities, rural development, revenue, and other public services. It can be accessed on the Aaple Sarkar Right to Services (RTS) website. The chatbot comprises a range of algorithms that gives the ability to process numerous queries every day such as analyzing, maintaining records and providing the user with the most useful information. Read more...
• T-Aadab for Telangana tourism website: In January 2019, the Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation launched an AI-powered chatbot called T-Aadab. The bot provides on-demand data and information on tourism, landmarks, and tour packages. T-Aadab provides smart responses in all major global and Indic languages. T-Aadab is powered by Xploree – a flagship product of  KeyPoint Technologies.
• AskVaani for bus journeys in Karnataka: The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), with the help of CoRover, has powered the AskVaani ChatBot. KSRTC has been able to benefit 6 million customers with more than 10 billion interactions since launch. Through Ask Vaani chatbot, KSRTC is able to respond to more than 10,000 customers daily without involving their customer support team which in turn has helped them to reduce their operational costs by more than 25%.

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