Chief Secretary directs departments to fast-track AI use cases to enhance public service delivery across J&K

• MeitY AI CoE to be operational by August 2026

SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, today chaired a high-level review meeting to assess the progress made on the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in governance in Jammu and Kashmir and the establishment of the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Artificial Intelligence here. The meeting besides the concerned Administrative Secretaries was attended by the Representatives from Indian Institute of Technology Jammu; BISAG and other concerned officers of the Union Territory.

While reviewing the progress, the Chief Secretary observed that Artificial Intelligence has the potential to fundamentally transform governance by improving efficiency, transparency, responsiveness and quality of public services. He maintained that the Government must leverage emerging technologies not merely as digital tools but as strategic enablers for better governance, faster decision-making and enhanced citizen service delivery.

He emphasised that technological solutions should complement the existing digital ecosystem instead of creating parallel systems, thereby ensuring optimal utilisation of public resources and seamless integration with existing platforms.

The Chief Secretary called upon the Administrative Departments to proactively engage with the Information Technology Department for expeditious implementation of the identified use cases. He directed the departments to nominate dedicated nodal officers wherever required and ensure timely sharing of quality datasets essential for development, testing and validation of AI solutions.

 He further stressed that data quality, interoperability and departmental ownership would remain critical to the successful deployment of AI applications across government.

Calling for a structured implementation framework, the Chief Secretary directed that sector-specific workshops be organised with all departmental nodal officers, technology partners, domain experts and implementation agencies to comprehensively assess data availability, infrastructure readiness, operational workflows and field-level requirements before commencement of pilot projects.

 He observed that such collaborative exercises would facilitate preparation of realistic implementation roadmaps while enabling departments to identify operational challenges at an early stage.

The Chief Secretary also emphasised that progress achieved under each AI initiative shall be monitored on a regular basis through defined milestones and outcome indicators so that implementation bottlenecks are resolved in a time-bound manner. He stressed the need for close coordination among all stakeholder departments to ensure that the identified AI initiatives translate into measurable improvements in governance across the Union Territory.

Earlier, a detailed presentation was made by the Commissioner Secretary IT, Saurabh Bhagat on the organisational framework, implementation strategy, current status and future roadmap of the Centre. The presentation also highlighted the action taken on the decisions of the Union Territory Level Steering Committee, the progress achieved on the identified AI use cases and the proposed roadmap for pilot implementation across departments.

During the meeting, the Chief Secretary was apprised of the progress achieved in establishing the MeitY Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence at IIT Jammu, conceived as a mission-mode national initiative to accelerate AI adoption across governance and public service delivery.  He was informed that the Centre is being readied for operationalisation, with around 10,000 square feet of space already earmarked and infrastructure being prepared for occupancy by August this year.

 It was added that the implementation roadmap and key performance indicators have been finalised in consultation with the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, while procurement of high-performance computing infrastructure has been initiated for hosting the AI Digital Public Infrastructure (AI-DPI). Moreover the meeting was also presented with a detailed status report on the Artificial Intelligence adoption programme being implemented across the Union Territory pursuant to the decisions of the Union Territory Level Steering Committee (UTLSC) on AI.

A comprehensive review was undertaken of the twenty AI use cases identified across eight priority sectors, namely Education, Skill Development, Agriculture, Power Development, Public Governance, Health & Medical Education, Transport & Infrastructure and emerging sectors including Tribal Welfare and Security.

The Chief Secretary was informed that consultations have been held with several premier academic institutions, technology companies, start-ups and research organisations for developing practical AI solutions tailored to the requirements of the Government. Multiple solution providers have expressed willingness to undertake pilot implementations in collaboration with the concerned departments, with several pilot proposals already under technical evaluation.

The meeting reviewed the progress achieved in respect of AI-enabled interventions for foundational literacy and numeracy, multilingual learning platforms, precision agriculture, hyper-local weather intelligence, digital governance, utility demand forecasting, infrastructure health monitoring, urban flood modelling, oral cancer screening, clinical decision support systems and several other technology-enabled public service applications. The status of departmental consultations, technical validations, pilot planning and stakeholder engagements undertaken for each use case was also reviewed in detail.

The meeting concluded with a commitment from all participating departments and partner institutions to work for expeditious implementation of the AI roadmap, with the objective of harnessing Artificial Intelligence as a key driver of transparent, efficient and citizen-centric governance in Jammu and Kashmir.