NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Culture is planning to launch an AI-driven search engine that will combine content from its main website and 30 affiliated platforms into a single intelligent digital gateway, aimed at making access to cultural information faster and easier.
Officials said the proposed system will centralize access to the ministry’s large collection of cultural resources and allow users to find information quickly through one interface. They added that the AI-powered tool will strengthen the ministry’s digital presence by providing faster and more accurate search results for citizens, researchers and institutions, while improving overall user experience.
To build the platform, the ministry will appoint a technology partner to develop and deploy a large language model-based search engine capable of retrieving information from all its digital platforms. According to the Request for Proposal document for selecting the technology partner, key features will include a unified semantic search interface, AI-generated summaries, multimedia integration and event discovery.
The ministry is the main government body responsible for preserving, promoting and sharing India’s cultural heritage. It works to protect both physical and intangible art forms and aims to make the country’s cultural legacy accessible, inclusive and sustainable.
“The ministry operates two attached offices and 34 autonomous organizations and these institutions work synergistically to implement policies and programmes that empower communities, recognize artistic excellence and connect citizens with their heritage… This solution is envisioned to significantly enhance the ministry's digital search and discovery capabilities by aggregating and semantically indexing content from the multiple websites under its purview,” read the document.
The proposed system is expected to offer a unified AI search that gathers and summarises information from repositories such as Indian Culture Portal, Abhilekh Patal, Gyan Bharatam, Amritkaal and Mera Gaon Meri Dharohar, which maps cultural details from about 6.5 lakh villages across India.
The RFP also states that the AI features should be built on advanced open-source language models and should work with API-based commercial AI systems such as those from OpenAI. “Proposed solution should be able to integrate an AI-driven chatbot capable of guiding users to precise information, enabling natural language interaction and deep search capabilities within specific domains of interest,” it says.