Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini launches AI-based government portal on January 6 in Gurugram. Photo credit: Special arrangement
The Haryana government’s voice feedback portal has received more than 11,000 suggestions from citizens across the state for the budget to be presented later this month.
Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini launched an artificial intelligence (AI)-based initiative on January 6 to invite suggestions from citizens to make the state budget 2026-27 a ‘people’s budget’. According to the state government, this is the first ever use of artificial intelligence in such a way in India’s administrative and democratic framework.
“Proposals relating to local self-government or municipalities and panchayats topped the list with 750, followed by 450 proposals relating to infrastructure development and 200 proposals relating to education, skill development and employment,” Raj Nehru, director general of the Swarna Jayanti Haryana Institute of Fiscal Management, told The Hindu.
He said 20% of the respondents were women and other suggestions were on fiscal resilience, innovation, public finance, ease of doing business, energy, cost rationalization, digital security, future-ready management, labour, women, child safety, start-ups, industrial growth and economic drivers.
As part of the consultation process, the Chief Minister also held 12 pre-budget meetings in January, for the first time also with sarpanches and councillors. The process ended on January 27 after a meeting with MLAs and MPs. Suggestions were also invited through the portal of the National Information Center.
“More than 15,000 proposals have been received from all these media for sectors like agriculture, education, health, finance, infrastructure, panchayati raj, urban development, health and women and child development,” said Mr. Nehru, who also serves as Special Officer to the Chief Minister.
2000 to the shortlist
All the proposals were collected and analyzed by Swarna Jayanti Haryana Institute of Fiscal Management. More than 2,000 shortlisted proposals have been sent to heads of various government departments and their final proposals will be submitted to the chief minister for inclusion in the budget, he said.
Mr. Nehru added that some “very relevant and important proposals” regarding the development of women and children had been received: CCTV cameras and dedicated helplines for women in workplaces, crèches in industries, mandatory audits of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act in all workplaces and increased participation of women in the manufacturing sector. He said 300 such proposals have been shortlisted and the chief minister has issued instructions to examine them for inclusion in the budget.
The budget will be guided by the state government’s ‘Vision-2047’ document presented by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Panchkula on December 24 last year.
“To align the state budget targets with the ‘Vision-2047’ document, the Chief Minister organized a day-long brainstorming session in Gurugram on January 6 with the participation of secretaries of various government departments, industry representatives and experts,” Mr. Nehru said.
Published – 12 Feb 2026 01:48 IST