Inspiration
Government welfare schemes can be life-changing, but the information is often hard to find and written in formal language. I wanted to make scheme guidance easier to access for people who are more comfortable communicating in English, Hindi, or Marathi.
What it does
SahayakBot is a multilingual welfare-scheme navigator. A user can message it through Email or Telegram and ask practical questions such as whether an elderly parent may qualify for a pension or where to apply for health coverage.
It replies in the user’s language with cautious, plain-language guidance, possible documents to prepare, and official places to verify the details. For eligibility-related questions, it also links to Janyojana, the companion scheme-finder website I built: https://jan-yojna.vercel.app/
For urgent or complex cases, SahayakBot sends a privacy-limited alert to a consenting volunteer so that a person can review the situation.
How I built it
I built SahayakBot in Python using Gemini for multilingual guidance and the Caspian SDK for channel handling. One shared on_message handler serves both Email and Telegram, rather than building separate bots for each channel.
Scheme facts are kept in a small structured data file and users are directed to official portals for final verification. API keys are stored locally in .env and are never committed.
Challenges I ran into
The hardest part was making guidance useful without pretending that the bot can guarantee eligibility, government approval, or emergency support. I added careful disclaimers, official verification links, and a human-handoff path for situations that need judgment.
Another challenge was keeping the experience consistent across English, Hindi, and Marathi while using the same message handler on two channels.
What I learned
I learned how to build and test a real multi-channel agent, design safer AI responses for public-service information, and make multilingual AI interaction practical for everyday users.
What's next for SahayakBot
We would like to scale this to make sure welfare scheme knowledge is easy to access to every citizen
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