What's new on citizen.org.in
Since noon on 2 October, citizen.org.in has grown from about 1,750 official documents on 14 government websites to about 7,830 documents on 97, and its answers have got markedly better. We check every change against a set of over 450 test questions written the way citizens ask them. On the 302 of those that we could measure on the evening of 2 October and again today:
| Evening of 2 Oct | Today | |
|---|---|---|
| Fully correct answers | 49% | about 68% |
| Wrong answers | 24% | about 11% |
| Answerable questions it declined | 8% | about 1% |
Every answer still comes only from official government pages, with a link to the page it used. When the answer is not on an official page we index, it says so instead of guessing.
Better answers
- More of the right information reaches each answer. We fixed a search problem that threw away most of the relevant passages; each answer now draws on about twice as much official text. This was the single biggest improvement.
- Answers keep the conditions that matter. If a benefit applies only to first-time applicants, only up to an income limit or only in some states, the answer now says so instead of leaving it out.
- Current rules win over old ones. When two official pages disagree, the answer uses the newer one and does not mix old and new versions of a scheme (for example PMAY-Urban 1.0 and 2.0).
- FAQ pages are read question by question. Long official FAQs (EPFO, Aadhaar app, FASTag, Ujjwala, Passport Seva, ECI, ABHA, ration cards, e-Shram, Income Tax ITR forms and more, over 2,000 questions in all) are now indexed one question at a time, so the exact answer is found instead of a nearby one.
- Hidden content is no longer missed. Some sites keep part of a page in tabs that only open on a click; three of the four tabs of the EPFO FAQ were being skipped. They are read in full now.
- Clutter removed. About 1,900 tenders, recruitment notices, near-empty pages and duplicates were taken out of the index, so they no longer crowd out useful pages.
- Abbreviations understood. SIR is the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls (answered from the Election Commission, not Aadhaar); ABHA is the Ayushman Bharat Health Account; MUDRA means PM Mudra Yojana rather than a similarly named weavers' scheme.
- Scanned documents are read. About 470 scanned official PDFs (circulars, guidelines and notices that are images, not text) are now read and searchable.
- Hindi works as well as English on the same questions: 105 of 170 fully correct in Hindi, against 102 in English, in our latest comparison.
More of government covered
The everyday service portals citizens use are now in, alongside myscheme's records of every Central scheme. A few of these (myscheme, ECI, ABHA, e-Shram, Income Tax, GST) were partly in before 2 October and have been extended.
| What you can ask about | Official sources now covered |
|---|---|
| Identity and documents | Aadhaar (UIDAI, including the Aadhaar app), passports (Passport Seva), e-Visa, India Post |
| Voting | Election Commission FAQs, how to vote, voter helpline 1950, Forms 6/6A/7/8 |
| Jobs, PF and pensions | EPFO, ESIC, e-Shram, National Career Service, Central pensions (Pensioners' Portal, CPAO), PM Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana |
| Ration and food | NFSA, ration-card helplines and portals for 34 States and UTs, Department of Food and Public Distribution |
| Money, loans and tax | Jan Dhan, Atal Pension, PMJJBY, PMSBY, Mudra, Startup India, Udyam (MSME) registration, Income Tax ITR FAQs, GST FAQs |
| Housing, gas, water and sanitation | PMAY-Urban, PMAY-Gramin, Ujjwala, Jal Jeevan Mission, Swachh Bharat Mission |
| Farmers | PM-KISAN (including the latest instalment), PM-KUSUM solar pumps, crop insurance (PMFBY), agriculture and animal husbandry schemes |
| Rural work | VB-G RAM G (which replaced MGNREGA in 2025) |
| Education and scholarships | National Scholarship Portal, NIOS, NTA, NCERT, AICTE, PM-Vidyalaxmi education loans, SC/ST/OBC, minority and disability scholarships |
| Health | ABHA and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, National Health Mission, AYUSH |
| Travel and transport | Driving licence and vehicle registration (Parivahan), FASTag, IRCTC cancellation and refund rules |
| Complaints and rights | CPGRAMS public grievances, RTI online, National Consumer Helpline, cyber crime reporting (1930), Sanchar Saathi |
| Workers and artisans | PM Vishwakarma, PM SVANidhi (street vendors), PM Shram Yogi Maandhan |
About 30 ministries and departments were added too, from Mines and Statistics (the latest Consumer Price Index) to Water Resources (dam safety, groundwater permissions).
Small things you will notice
- Email addresses in answers now read normally (help@uidai.gov.in), not as help[at]uidai[dot]gov[dot]in.
- The line under the question box showing how many official pages are covered now updates every minute, so new batches show without a reload.
- Government helpline numbers are answered from the department's own page wherever we have it, such as 1950 for voters, 1033 for national highways and 1930 for cyber fraud.
Not covered yet
- Some major sites block automated reading: india.gov.in, PIB press releases, the Health, Education and Electronics & IT ministries, CBSE, DigiLocker and Jal Shakti. We respect that protection and do not work around it; we will add these sites once we can read them properly.
- Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY: its own website has not been reachable from our servers, so answers on the newest changes (such as cover for everyone over 70) may be incomplete. Basic eligibility is answered from myscheme.
- State governments: coverage is Central Government only, apart from each state's ration-card helpline and portal. For the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, answers come from the Election Commission's national guidance; state-wise schedules are on each state's Chief Electoral Officer website, which we will add later.
- Your own records: the assistant cannot check application status, book appointments or file anything for you. It points you to the official page that does.
If an answer is wrong, out of date or missing something, please use the feedback button under it. We read every piece of feedback, and several of the fixes above, such as SIR and the email format, started that way.
Sree UnnikrishnanFounder, Citizen