India, Portugal to Form AI Governance Working Group; Jitendra Singh Showcases 95% Grievance Disposal, Digital Pension Model

New Delhi: India and Portugal have agreed to establish a joint working mechanism on administrative reforms and digital governance, with a focus on deploying artificial intelligence in public services, following talks between Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh and Portugal’s Minister in the Cabinet of the Prime Minister and of State Reform Gonçalo Matias on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi on Tuesday.

The discussions marked a shift from dialogue to structured cooperation, with both sides aligning on the need to combine administrative simplification with AI-led digital transformation.

Working Group on AI-Enabled Governance

Jitendra Singh proposed the creation of a dedicated working group to identify priority areas for collaboration, including digital pension systems, grievance redressal platforms and AI-enabled document processing.

“We can identify areas of mutual benefit and begin with specific, scalable models,” he said, suggesting training exchanges and technical cooperation between the two administrations.

The meeting also reviewed India’s governance reforms over the past decade. The Minister said nearly 2,000 obsolete rules, including several colonial-era requirements, had been scrapped to improve service delivery. He cited the abolition of mandatory gazetted officer attestation, removal of interview-based recruitment for certain categories and the introduction of simplified single-page digital forms.

95% Grievance Disposal, End-to-End Pension Digitisation

Highlighting India’s grievance redressal system, he said the platform operates on a hybrid model combining AI-based sorting with human oversight, achieving close to 95% disposal rates. Final decisions continue to involve human intervention.

He added that pension processing has been digitised end-to-end, with biometric and facial authentication for life certificates now covering millions of beneficiaries annually.

“Simplification Before Digitalisation”: Portugal’s Approach

Gonçalo Matias outlined Portugal’s reform framework built around “simplification first, digitalisation next.” He said core codes governing public procurement, construction and licensing are being revised before embedding AI into administrative decision-making.

“There is no point in digitalising what is complex. If we digitalise complexity, we create another layer of bureaucracy,” he said, adding that AI would accelerate document processing but final decisions would require human ratification.

Portugal is also investing public funds to support small and medium enterprises in adopting AI, particularly after recent extreme climate events damaged industrial units in the country’s central region. The goal, he said, is to ensure affected SMEs rebuild with stronger technological capabilities within the year.

Broader Cooperation Agenda

Jitendra Singh noted India’s recent anti-corruption initiatives at the G20, including a focus on women-centric corruption risks and efforts to address economic fugitives exploiting jurisdictional gaps. He also referred to India’s election to a leadership position at the International Institute of Administrative Sciences as recognition of its reform trajectory.

Both sides discussed expediting the third meeting of the senior consultative body under their existing MoU on public administration and governance reforms, and exploring deeper collaboration in science and technology, digital inclusion and academic exchanges.

The engagement comes as India and Portugal build on 50 years of re-established diplomatic ties, signalling a move towards practical institutional alignment centred on AI-led governance and administrative modernisation.