Chandigarh, May 26 -- : Handling of public grievances, school education planning, road infrastructure maintenance, healthcare imaging services and water and sewerage management have been picked as five priority sectors by the Haryana government where Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions in governance will be tested and deployed under state government's AI Sandbox initiative. An AI Sandbox is a secure, time-bound environment where competitively selected teams develop and pilot AI solutions to address specific challenges. "Unlike conventional pilots that commit resources upfront, the Sandbox operates on a test before invest principle allowing stakeholders to prove that an AI solution works, is safe and delivers measurable value before any decision to scale," J Ganesan, chief executive officer of a special purpose vehicle formed under the Haryana AI Development Project (HAIDP), told HT. Ganesan, CEO of the SPV named AI for Resilient Jobs, Urban Air Quality & Next-Gen Skills Council (ARJUN), said that through the Sandbox, they aim to demonstrate how AI can be applied to real public-service priorities in a responsible, transparent and citizen-centric manner. The initiative will position the state as a leading hub for AI and digital innovation in governance. It will also be a stepping stone for activities under two AI centres of excellence approved by the central government for Haryana, he said. The five sectors identified under the Haryana AI Sandbox are supervised pilots where AI would assist departments in improving efficiency and service delivery while final authority remains with officials The CEO said the first use case pertained to citizen grievance redressal under the chief minister's Jan Samvad grievance cell where AI would help efficiently manage large volumes of public complaints. The system would read and classify grievances submitted by citizens, identify issues such as water and electricity supply, pensions, police complaints and automatically route complaints to the concerned department. It would also help prioritise urgent complaints based on keywords, patterns and severity. However, AI would not issue orders or close complaints automatically. Officers would continue to examine grievances and take a final call. Ganesan said AI would ensure a faster response, reduce backlog, improve tracking and help categorize complaints. He said the second pilot pertained to road maintenance to be implemented through Mhari Sadak and the Haryana Space Applications Centre. The AI would analyse photographs and reports of damaged roads, detect potholes and road deterioration, estimate the severity of damage and help prioritise repairs. In the education sector, the AI-based pilot would function as a decision-support system for teacher deployment and school resource planning. The system, however, would not automate transfers or posting decisions. Ganesan said that another proposed use case involved AI-assisted public health imaging in the health department. The system would analyse chest X-rays and flag scans that may indicate emergent conditions such as infections, tuberculosis or lung abnormalities. This would help radiologists prioritise high-risk cases in hospitals facing heavy workloads. However, AI would not perform medical diagnoses and diagnosis would remain the domain of medical professionals. The fifth use case focuses on water and sewerage services where the AI will analyse complaints about water supply and sewerage services, flag repeated problems, and help prioritize repairs and maintenance. The state government will launch the call for proposals phase of the Haryana AI Sandbox on June 1 at Gurugram University. This entails inviting start-ups and innovators to develop AI-enabled solutions for a set of priority public-service challenges. Following public call for proposals, applications will be assessed through a competitive evaluation involving concerned department heads and the programme committee, and one team is selected for each use case. "Selected initiatives will get funding from World Bank to help them scale and deploy,'' Ganesan said. "Hyperscalers like Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services have shown interest in the pilots and assured pro bono access for innovators to cloud computing infrastructure. We will announce the successful innovators in the third week of June at an AI summit. The department and the selected team will sign a formal agreement before access to the required data can be provided," the CEO said....