Maharashtra approves ₹11.26 crore Sarvam AI deployment across government departments.
NEW DELHI: The Maharashtra government has cleared the deployment of sovereign artificial intelligence solutions developed by Sarvam AI for use across state government departments.
A High-Power Committee headed by the Chief Secretary approved a two-year outlay of ₹11.26 crore for the initiative.
The decision, formalised through a Government Resolution, marks a significant step in the state’s push to integrate advanced, India-hosted AI tools into public administration while keeping sensitive data within the country’s borders.
Core Package and User Coverage
The primary component is the deployment of Indus, a sovereign AI workspace, for approximately 2,500 state government users. The indicative cost for the first year is ₹5.63 crore, forming part of the overall two-year outlay of ₹11.26 crore.
According to the Government Resolution, Sarvam AI will host the solutions entirely on secure and audited infrastructure located within India.
This ensures that no government data leaves the country, aligning with the growing emphasis on data sovereignty in public-sector technology adoption.
Capabilities of the Indus Platform
Indus is designed to support a range of administrative tasks. It will assist officials with drafting and file noting, generation of RTI responses, document intelligence, and optical character recognition (OCR) across Indian scripts.
The platform supports multilingual interaction in 22 Indian languages, including Marathi. Additional features include project workspaces, data analysis tools, and integration with existing systems such as eOffice and NIC email wherever API access is available.
Additional AI Tools and Pilot Projects
Beyond Indus, the package includes Samvaad, a set of voice and WhatsApp-based citizen outreach agents, along with Saaras (a speech recognition model) and Bulbul (a text-to-speech model). These speech models will be integrated into the state’s MahaAI platform.
The committee has also approved a one-month pilot of the Samvaad AI agent focused on tuberculosis awareness.
The system will make outreach calls to TB patients in local languages and analyse call quality. The pilot carries a one-time agent development charge of ₹6 lakh and a usage charge of ₹3 per minute.
Saaras and Bulbul will be available on the MahaAI platform for four months on a usage-based, no-commitment basis.
Charges are set at ₹0.50 per minute for Saaras and ₹30 per 10,000 characters for Bulbul (excluding GST).
Commercial Structure and Support
Sarvam AI is offering a Foundation Partner subscription rate of ₹1,200 per user per month for the first 12 months, compared with the standard rate of ₹2,500 per user per month.
Additional costs include a one-time professional services fee of ₹50 lakh, setup and adoption manpower of ₹42 lakh for three months, and an annual platform maintenance fee of ₹25 lakh.
The approval also covers Track Two department transformation engagements starting at ₹50 lakh per engagement and on-demand Forward-Deployed Engineers (FDEs) at ₹7 lakh per engineer per month. Two FDEs have been cleared for deployment beyond the initial three-month period until December at the same rate (excluding taxes).
Implementation Arrangements
The Electronics, Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence Department will shoulder the project costs, while the Commissionerate of Electronics, Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence is designated to execute it according to the outlined guidelines.
The initiative reflects Maharashtra’s effort to modernise government workflows, improve citizen outreach, and strengthen multilingual digital services through indigenous AI capabilities while prioritising data security and sovereignty.
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