AI in Governance and Administrative Reforms in India

DARPG is the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances. It helps the government run its offices better. It also handles the complaints that people send in.

Which ministry is it part of?

It sits in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. This ministry has three departments:

• The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
• The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG).
• The Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare.

In 1985, the ministry was placed under the overall charge of the Prime Minister. A Minister of State was to assist him.

When did DARPG begin?

Its roots go back to March 1964. That is when a Department of Administrative Reforms was set up in the Ministry of Home Affairs. But today’s DARPG took its present shape much later, in 1985.

What came before 1964?

A small unit came first. It was called the Organisation and Method (O&M) Division.

• March 1954: the O&M Division was set up in the Cabinet Secretariat.
• Why: it followed a recommendation made by Paul H. Appleby.
• March 1964: the O&M Division moved to the new Department of Administrative Reforms.

How did today’s DARPG take shape?

The department moved and changed its name a few times. Here are the main steps:

• 7 February 1973: its work moved to the Department of Personnel, which was renamed the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms.
• March 1985: that department became a full ministry.
• 10 December 1985: the ministry got its present name, with DARPG as one of its three departments.

CPGRAMS takes a complaint online, sends it to the right office, and tracks it. The full name is the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System. It is the government’s main online complaint platform.

Who does CPGRAMS connect?

It links all Central ministries and departments on one portal. State governments and Union Territories are linked too. The portal is open 24×7.

How can a citizen file a complaint?

There are several ways in:

• Website: register once and file at pgportal.gov.in.
• Mobile app: the CPGRAMS app, which is also linked to UMANG.
• Common Service Centres: any of the 5 lakh+ centres across the country.
• By post: letters received by post are digitised and uploaded.

Each complaint gets a unique registration ID. The citizen uses it to track the case.

How fast must a complaint be solved?

The target is 21 days. New guidelines in August 2024 cut it from 30 days. The same guidelines asked for grievance cells and root-cause checks.

• Average time in 2014: 157 days, in Central ministries and departments.
• Average time in 2025: 15 days.

What if the citizen is not happy?

She can appeal. A Nodal Appellate Authority must decide the appeal within 30 days. A feedback call centre also phones citizens to ask if they are satisfied.

What does CPGRAMS not take up?

Some matters go elsewhere. CPGRAMS does not take up:

• RTI matters.
• Court cases, or matters still before a court.
• Religious matters.
• Service matters of government staff, such as disciplinary cases.

How many complaints does it get?

The numbers have grown very fast, but two official counts differ.

• The Minister’s count: about 2 lakh a year in 2014, and over 25 lakh a year now.
• A later official count: about 3.01 lakh in 2014, and around 27 lakh in 2024.
• Officers: Grievance Redressal Officers rose from 10,232 in 2014 to more than 1.11 lakh by 2025.
• Disposal rate: the Minister said it has crossed 95%.

Both counts show the same trend. Use the pair your question asks about.

Samadhan Didi is an AI voice chatbot on CPGRAMS. A citizen can file a complaint just by speaking in her own language.

Who launched it, and when?

Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, launched it. The launch was on 30 May 2026 at Kartavya Bhawan, New Delhi. DARPG built it with Bhashini, the national language tool.

What does the chatbot do?

It does the hard sorting work for the citizen:

1. The citizen describes the problem in plain words.
2. The chatbot asks a few follow-up questions.
3. It finds the right ministry, department, category and sub-category.
4. It files the complaint with the right office.

So the citizen does not need to know which office handles the problem.

What technology sits inside it?

• Language tools: Bhashini’s speech-to-text, text-to-speech, translation and transliteration.
• Sorting models: AI models trained on past CPGRAMS data.
• Safety: it runs on secure government systems to protect data privacy.
• Input: citizens can use voice or text.

Does a machine decide the whole case?

A human officer is kept at the final stage. CPGRAMS retains a human interface at the end of disposal. The Minister said this ensures both efficiency and empathy.

Which languages does it support?

It supports the 22 languages of the Eighth Schedule. More languages are being added in phases. Examples named at the launch were Bhojpuri, Garo, Khasi, Mijo and Bodhi.

What did the Minister ask States to do?

He asked States to add similar voice tools to their own complaint portals. That would help people in far-off places reach the system.

Bhashini is the main language tool behind it. It is India’s National Language Translation Mission. It helps people use online services in their own language.

Who runs Bhashini?

It comes under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The Digital India BHASHINI Division puts it into action. That division is part of Digital India Corporation.

Does CPGRAMS use Bhashini elsewhere?

Yes, it does. CPGRAMS takes complaints in 22 scheduled languages, plus English. Bhashini also lets officers reply in the citizen’s own language.

What is the Eighth Schedule?

It is the list of languages in the Constitution. Today it has 22 languages. Its base lies in Articles 344(1) and 351.

How did the list grow to 22?

Other reforms run alongside it.

What are Digital Life Certificates?

Pensioners can give their life certificate using face recognition. This was launched on 29 November 2021. At launch, it was set to help 68 lakh Central Government pensioners.

• Who built it: NIC, MeitY and UIDAI.
• Whose scheme: the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare.

What is the Special Campaign?

It is a drive to clear pending work and clean up offices. Its full name is the Special Campaign for Disposal of Pending Matters and Cleanliness. It began in 2021.

• Money from scrap: more than Rs 4,000 crore.
• Space freed: nearly 700 lakh square feet of office space.
• Campaign 2.0: ran from 2 to 31 October 2022.
• What 2.0 covered: public grievances, MPs’ letters, State references, inter-ministry talks and Parliament assurances.

How many old rules were removed?

Nearly 2,000 obsolete rules and compliance needs were repealed. The Minister said many old rules stayed only because nobody looked at them again.

What is NextGen CPGRAMS?

It is a planned upgrade of CPGRAMS. It is not fully running yet. Its planned features include:

• Voice filing and AI sorting of complaints.
• One platform that also holds State complaint categories.
• Filing by email, social media and mobile apps.
• Automatic escalation of slow cases.
• AI checks on whether a complaint was truly solved.

How is this different from the IndiaAI Mission?

DARPG’s tools handle complaints and office reform. The IndiaAI Mission builds a national system for AI growth.

• Approved: by the Union Cabinet on 7 March 2024.
• Outlay: Rs 10,371.92 crore.
• Computing: public AI compute of 10,000 or more GPUs.

DARPG and Meghalaya held a two-day national meet on the next round of reforms. It took place in Shillong on 13 and 14 July 2026.

What was the theme?

The theme was “NextGen Administrative & e-Gov Reforms”. More than 300 delegates were expected. Over 30 speakers were set to share good practices.

Who opened it?

Dr Jitendra Singh opened it on 13 July 2026. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma was also at the opening.

What did the Minister say?

• India is entering the next phase of governance reform.
• Future reforms must join AI, cybersecurity, digital public infrastructure and citizen platforms.
• Next steps include AI-based administration, process re-engineering and evidence-based policy.
• These meets are now held in different regions, not only in New Delhi.

He also gave one short line on mindset: “our thinking must evolve at the same pace”.

What is India’s digital base?

The Minister listed the base that new reforms build on:

• More than 56 crore Jan Dhan bank accounts.
• Aadhaar-based services.
• Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
• UPI, which handles over 18 billion payments every month.

Was there an earlier Shillong Declaration?

Yes, there was. The first Shillong Declaration on e-Governance was adopted on 9 August 2019. It came at the 22nd National Conference on e-Governance in Shillong. That meet’s theme was “Digital India: Success to Excellence”.

Was a Shillong Declaration 2.0 adopted?

The Minister hoped the 2026 meet would end in a “Shillong Declaration 2.0”. Treat it as a hope, not a fact on record.

Exams test names, dates and who runs what. These traps come up often.

What are the traps?

1. Who runs CPGRAMS? DARPG does, not MeitY. Bhashini comes under MeitY.
2. 1964 or 1985? March 1964 is the root. 10 December 1985 is the present ministry name.
3. Target or average? 21 days is the time limit. 15 days was the 2025 average.
4. Two counts. Over 25 lakh is the Minister’s figure. About 27 lakh in 2024 is the other count.
5. Who hosted Shillong 2026? DARPG, together with the Government of Meghalaya.
6. Which Declaration? The 2019 Shillong Declaration was adopted. The 2.0 version was only hoped for.
7. IndiaAI or DARPG? Samadhan Didi is a DARPG tool.

How can you remember the key facts?

Think “54, 64, 85” for the history: unit, department, present name. Then think “21 and 22”: a 21-day limit and 22 languages.