20 citizen-centric services on WhatsApp soon, Gujarat signs MoU with Meta
Services include grievance redressal assistance, income, caste and EWS certificates, ration card updates, revenue records and official affidavits
The Gujarat government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Meta Platforms Inc in Gandhinagar on Monday for facilitating the service. (File) Soon citizens in Gujarat will be able to avail income, caste and EWS certificates, update ration cards, revenue records and official affidavits through a single WhatsApp number.
The Gujarat government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Meta Platforms Inc in Gandhinagar on Monday for facilitating the service.
The initiative, in accordance with the recommendations of the Gujarat Administrative Reforms Commission (GARC) and under ‘Sugam Digital Gujarat’ initiative, will make nearly 20 citizen-centric services from five departments available via a WhatsApp chatbot. Under the ‘Sugam Digital Gujarat’ initiative, the state government has recently brought over 20 government services online.
“This MoU makes availing of government services more comfortable. A larger number of people use WhatsApp on their mobile phones so this makes it easier to access government services on a single WhatsApp number. WhatsApp, which is mostly used for marketing and commercial services, will now offer government services,” a senior government official told The Indian Express, explaining how this makes it different from the recently launched online service. This will free citizens from navigating multiple web portals or standing in queues at government offices, saving both time and cost and strengthening transparency and accountability, the state government said.
“With the implementation of the MoU, the service delivery process will become simpler and real-time status tracking will become more robust. The state government intends to gradually integrate more services with the WhatsApp-based platform in future,” the state government said in a statement.
The services that will be made available on WhatsApp include grievance redressal assistance, income, caste and EWS certificates, ration card updates, revenue records and official affidavits. The launch of the WhatsApp services is likely to take some time as customisation and integration of different platforms is required to be achieved. “This might take some time so it is difficult to announce a timeline for the launch,” the official said.
Through Jan Seva Kendras (JSKs) in urban areas and the VCE (Village Computer Entrepreneur)-based system in rural areas, government services are made available to citizens in a simple and transparent manner. The MoU signed with Meta Platforms Inc (Meta) will herald the ‘next phase of citizen-centric governance’, the release said.
GARC assessment
The assessment of top 20 citizen services by the GARC based on application volume data from the Digital Gujarat portal (April 2024 – March 2025), the top 20 ‘most availed’ services are clubbed into seven major categories – Ration card, income certificate, caste certificate, non-creamy layer certificate, SEBC certificate, EWS certificate, and affidavits.
The GARC analysed the top 20 of over 400 services to spotlight citizen priorities and resource-intensive workflows. The data revealed that approvals are heavily clustered at the mamlatdar/deputy mamlatdar level, creating structural bottlenecks where demand far exceeds processing capacity.
Equally significant is the channel mix: while web portals and assisted kiosks remain the backbone of access, the growing use of mobile apps signals a gradual but essential shift toward digital self-service, it stated.
However, the service timelines vary widely—from one to fifteen days—indicating uneven process design and scope for standardisation. These insights frame the detailed service-by-service analysis that follows, providing the evidence base for targeted reforms in automation, decentralisation, and mobile-first design.
Sugam Digital Gujarat
On March 24, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel launched the ‘Sugam Digital Gujarat’ initiative. The CM announced online simplification of 20 high-transaction services across five major state departments, based on the recommendations of the fifth report of GARC.
He said that with the new system, data will be stored digitally, so citizens will not need to submit the same documents again and again. A digital locker is also being introduced for this.
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