Meta tapping states for e-governance push via Llama AI, WhatsApp, says India head Sandhya Devanathan

Sandhya Devanathan, Vice President and Head, Meta India

Facebook parent Meta is in talks with various state governments for a major e-governance push in India through its open artificial intelligence (AI) model Llama and messaging application WhatsApp, India head Sandhya Devanathan told Moneycontrol in an interview.

Since the beginning of 2025, the social networking giant has been partnering with the state governments of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Odisha to introduce WhatsApp-based citizen service delivery models, aimed at helping citizens quickly access government services and schemes.

The Chandrababu Naidu-led Andhra Pradesh government launched its chatbot, Mana Mitra, in January, offering over 160 citizen-centric services across categories such as electricity bill payments, temple seva bookings, bus ticket bookings, and revenue, municipal, and grievance services. By March, the offering had expanded to 200 services.

Devanathan said that traditionally, citizen services are scattered across several websites, or if they’re offered on WhatsApp, each service usually has a separate phone number.

For example, if the government has 50 services, they would be spread across 50 different websites, and if those services are available on WhatsApp, there would be a different phone number for each one — whether it’s paying a bill or booking temple tickets.

"What we have done differently with Andhra Pradesh is launching all citizen services on a single phone number, and that has been a good model for e-governance" she said. Devanathan, however, added that this was possible because the Andhra Pradesh government was "forward-thinking and brought a whole bunch of departments together."

“Our team is involved in helping them brainstorm, but a lot of the heavy lifting is from the government itself because they have to integrate and bring things together. Along with our BSP (business solution provider) partner, we help them think through what’s the best user experience and what would work” Devanathan said.

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Mana Mitra has facilitated over 5.1 million transactions, benefiting 2.5 million citizens, the Andhra Pradesh government said in March, while outlining its plans to roll out 500 services by June.

Meta plans to replicate a similar strategy with Maharashtra and Odisha governments, Devanathan said, as both states gear up to launch their own respective WhatsApp chatbots in the coming months.

Maharashtra has said that it intends to offer more than 500 services on a single number while Odisha plans to integrate 429 government services. That said, Devanathan described these efforts as still being in the "early days."

"If you add AI and voice-enabled services as well at a later point, then inclusion becomes really powerful, because now you’re talking to people who may not be comfortable communicating in English," she said.

With over 500 million users, India is the biggest market for the Meta-owned messaging app. The country, which is one of the largest markets for paid messaging globally, is also central to Meta's business messaging ambitions, which have become a strategic priority as the company seeks to reduce its reliance on digital advertising.

Read: Meta India head Sandhya Devanathan on why India is a key market for WhatsApp Business, AI initiatives

Making Llama more relevant to India

Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra governments have also signed agreements to use Llama for a range of backend services, such as document retrieval, to boost productivity and efficiency for government employees, Devanathan said.

In January, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship introduced SIA (Skill India Assistant), a chatbot built entirely on Llama. It connects young people with jobs they could apply for, provides course recommendations, offers custom quizzes, and helps search for offline skill centres. People can interact with the chatbot through both voice and text, in Hindi and English.

Devanathan said that Meta is focusing on making Llama "more relevant" to India, which has quickly become one of the top markets for the adoption of Llama models among developers. This includes focusing on adding more support for Indian languages in future Llama models and making sure the datasets represent India’s diversity.

"India is a really important market for Llama...How can we make sure that Indian inputs are being considered in the Llama models that are being generated? That's an ongoing effort" she said. Llama 3.1 model, which was released in July 2024, had added support for Hindi language.

Another key focus area is working with enterprises and system integrators to drive Llama's enterprise adoption, Devanathan said.

In October 2024, Infosys unveiled a Meta Centre of Excellence (CoE) when Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist, visited India. This centre is expected to build a large pool of talent on the Llama stack, develop industry-specific use cases, and collaborate closely with Meta to help customers easily integrate the Llama stack.

Read: Meta rolls out Llama 4 as race for AI dominance heats up

In the same month, Meta also announced a collaboration with PwC India to jointly build and deploy enterprise-grade and citizen-service GenAI solutions to increase Llama's adoption.

"Companies such as Info Edge and Dream11 (Dream Sports) that are working with us on ads products are also now finding value with Llama. This is completely different from using our products for driving sales, conversions, or engagement" Devanathan said.