Problem / Objective

As part of the Digital India programme and for ease of doing business, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, has undertaken an initiative to revamp its services delivery mechanisms to promote and facilitate foreign trade.

Solution / Approach

In the first phase of the plan, an AI-powered chatbot to cater to queries of users has been launched. The VAHEI (Virtual Assistant to Help Exporters and Importers) chatbot can help with queries related to Foreign Trade Policy of India and DGFT. It is available for assistance to both login users and anonymous users on the DGFT portal, but certain functionalities such as viewing IEC (Import-Export Code) status are reserved for only login users.

Using the VAHEI bot, exporters/importers/public users can also check status of various applications and authorisations. Users can see new notifications, trade notice, public notice & circulars on chatbot. The chatbot gives text responses for a simple query or provides the relevant URLs. If no direct response is found, it finds references in foreign trade policy/ Handbook of procedure and opens related section in PDF.

After first query, VAHEI intelligently understands context and gives auto-suggestions to the user. In case the chatbot is not trained for their query, users can connect to live agents in the same window or create a ticket.

Impact / Implementation

VAHEI became accessible on the bottom right corner of the existing DGFT website since July 2020. Feedback is captured at various levels for continuous improvement of chatbot replies. Based on the entered feedback, the AI-based chatbot refines its responses and provides better replies next time, hence enhancing user experience.

Source: DGFT

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay