Srinagar, Sep 29 (KNO): In a significant step towards making public service delivery more accessible, convenient and citizen-friendly, Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo today chaired a high-level meeting of all the concerned Administrative Secretaries to review the preparedness of the IT Department for the early rollout of an AI-powered conversational messaging platform that will enable citizens across Jammu and Kashmir to access government services directly through WhatsApp.
The meeting besides the Commissioner Secretary, IT was attended by other Administrative Heads, Deputy Commissioners; senior officers and a team from NeGD, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), NIC and senior officers from IT Department.
The initiative envisages onboarding 100 high-footfall government services in the first phase, allowing citizens to apply for essential services, track applications, submit documents, make payments and receive official communications through WhatsApp without the need to download separate applications or navigate multiple government portals.
During the meeting, the Chief Secretary reviewed the implementation roadmap for the proposed Multi-Channel Conversational Messaging API Solution, which will leverage Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to provide an integrated, multilingual and interactive interface for accessing government services.
Emphasising the importance of simplifying government-citizen interactions, the Chief Secretary observed that the initiative should substantially reduce procedural complexities, minimise physical visits to government offices and make essential public services accessible to citizens from the comfort of their homes.
He stressed that the platform should particularly benefit people living in rural and remote areas by providing a familiar, user-friendly interface capable of functioning even on low-bandwidth internet connections.
The Chief Secretary directed the IT Department to work in close coordination with the concerned line departments to expedite backend integration of the identified services and ensure their seamless delivery through the proposed platform.
He further called for comprehensive performance benchmarking, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and adequate training of government functionaries to ensure the platform's smooth and effective rollout.
On this occasion the Commissioner Secretary, IT Department, Saurabh Bhagat apprised the meeting that Jammu and Kashmir currently offers 1,710 e-services through various digital platforms, including e-UNNAT, ServicePlus and Revenue Plus. Of these, 100 frequently accessed services have been identified for onboarding in the first phase to maximise public outreach and ensure immediate benefits to citizens.
These include issuance of Income, Domicile, Caste, EWS and RBA certificates, besides access to land records such as Fard, Girdawari, Jamabandi and Mutation under the Revenue Department.
Similarly, services relating to issuance and renewal of driving licences, vehicle ownership transfers, payment of e-Challans and fancy vehicle number e-auctions are proposed to be integrated from the Transport Department.
Under the Housing and Urban Development Department, citizens will be able to access services relating to Birth and Death certificates, commercial establishment NOCs and building construction permissions.
The platform will also facilitate access to various social welfare schemes, including Ladli Beti, marriage assistance and post-matric and merit-cum-means scholarships. Other identified services include electricity and water bill payments, ration card modifications, agricultural schemes under HADP, JKSSB registrations and pilgrimage-related services.
Highlighting the key features of the proposed platform, the IT Department informed that it would offer multilingual support in Urdu, Hindi and English to ensure wider accessibility across Jammu and Kashmir.
The platform will also incorporate a one-time registration and Single Sign-On (SSO) mechanism, eliminating the need for citizens to repeatedly enter their personal details while accessing different government services. A unified citizen database is also envisaged for seamless integration with the Family ID system.
Other proposed features include AI-assisted conversational interfaces, Optical Character Recognition (OCR)-based document processing and validation, secure integration with multiple payment gateways, automated grievance escalation mechanisms and modular workflows for document submission.
Regarding the progress achieved so far, the Department informed that a dedicated System Integrator has already been onboarded through the National e-Governance Division (NeGD) empanelment framework to facilitate the implementation of the project.
It was further disclosed that JK SAMADHAN 2.0, the government's public grievance redressal platform, has been selected as the first service for integration. A functional working demonstration featuring a multilingual citizen interface has already been developed and showcased, marking an important milestone towards the operationalisation of the proposed platform.
Taking note of the progress, the Chief Secretary reiterated that the ultimate objective of the initiative should be to bring government services closer to citizens by leveraging widely used digital technologies, ensuring that people across Jammu and Kashmir can access essential public services with greater ease, transparency and convenience—(KNO)