Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration has introduced an AI-powered grievance portal that allows citizens to report food and drug safety violations using voice commands, as the state looks to make its complaint and enforcement process more accessible and traceable.
The platform allows users to speak about an issue rather than manually filling out lengthy complaint forms. The AI system accepts voice complaints in Marathi, Hindi and English and converts the information into a structured written complaint before it is registered.
Launched by Maharashtra FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe in July, the portal is designed to handle complaints related to adulterated or unsafe food, counterfeit and substandard medicines, unlicensed food establishments and other violations falling under the department’s jurisdiction.
Once a complaint is submitted, the system automatically assigns it to the relevant FDA officer. It also includes an auto-escalation mechanism, under which unresolved complaints can be escalated if they are not addressed within the stipulated timeframe.
Citizens can track their complaints online, providing visibility into the grievance process from registration to subsequent action. The system has been built around auto-assignment, escalation, accountability and traceability, according to the department.
The AI layer primarily simplifies how complaints are captured and structured. Rather than requiring citizens to navigate technical forms or know how to formally describe a regulatory violation, the system can turn spoken information into a complaint that can be processed by the department.
Users can also provide supporting information while registering grievances. The portal collects details including the complaint description, information about the food business or product, location data and photographs or bill images where relevant.
The Maharashtra FDA states in its privacy policy that personal information collected through the portal is used to verify, investigate and act on grievances, provide status updates and fulfil the department’s statutory enforcement responsibilities. The information is not used for advertising or profiling.
The launch comes alongside a wider enforcement drive by the Maharashtra FDA. The department has been taking action against food adulteration, counterfeit medicines, illegal cosmetics and other unsafe products, while increasing surveillance of categories including milk and dairy products.
The platform has also seen early public engagement. Within 24 hours of its launch, the website recorded around 10 lakh visits and received thousands of complaints, according to figures shared by Mundhe at a food safety conference in July. Pune district recorded the highest number of food-related grievances during the initial period, with unhygienic food among the most commonly reported issues.
The portal gives citizens another route to report potential violations alongside existing channels such as helplines and email-based complaints.
For the administration, the use of AI introduces automation at the initial stage of grievance management while retaining the regulatory process that follows a complaint. Filing a grievance itself does not guarantee a particular enforcement outcome, with complaints remaining subject to statutory investigation.
The initiative represents another use of conversational AI in public-facing government services, where the technology is being deployed to simplify interactions rather than requiring citizens to adapt to conventional digital forms.
As Maharashtra expands its food and drug safety enforcement, the portal will provide a test of whether voice-based AI, automated routing and complaint tracking can reduce friction between citizens reporting violations and officials responsible for investigating them.
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