This month, we’re building a browser extension that opens a Gen AI chatbot on the Kaveri portal to assist with marriage registration queries. 

Why start with Marriage Registration? 

We believe marriage registration is a strategic entry point and gateway service for citizens to start using the Kaveri portal.

• Low Urgency: People are typically not in a rush and are more open to trying it themselves rather than relying on intermediaries.
• Low Risk: It’s a relatively low-risk process compared to, say, sale deed registration, where mistakes can lead to serious complications at the SRO.
• Opportunity for Progressive Onboarding: The process occurs earlier in a citizen’s life. If they have a smooth experience registering their marriage independently, they are more likely to return to Kaveri later as their life stage evolves. For example, when evaluating properties while planning to buy their first family home. At that point, they can use the portal to conduct due diligence by applying for an encumbrance certificate, obtaining a certified copy of a sale deed, and eventually scheduling a sale deed registration appointment with the SRO once they have selected a home.

All of this helps build a habit loop of self-service in government processes.

Why a chatbot? 

The more guides we wrote, the more we realized how many small but critical nuances each process involved, making the content long and difficult to navigate. 

Here’s a small sample of highly nuanced hacks for marriage registration:

• The most common reason applications are returned is ‘SRO not in jurisdiction.’ The selected SRO must match one of the submitted address proofs. For instance, if you choose the bride’s permanent address as the SRO but upload proof for her current address, the application will be returned.
• The Kaveri portal also auto-logs out after 30 minutes – even during active use – and if this happens on the eSign page, users must restart the entire process for all parties. To avoid this, we advise logging out and back in before starting eSign to refresh the session. 
• Users need to enter their full name in the ‘First Name’ field, otherwise Aadhaar authentication will fail.

Presenting all these details up front can feel overwhelming or intimidating to citizens. A chatbot reduces this cognitive load, surfacing guidance only when needed. It felt like a more citizen-friendly solution, and we decided to start with marriage registration. 

Why a chatbot on the Kaveri portal instead of the Zen Citizen website?

We prioritized a browser extension chatbot because it delivers help directly on the portal, eliminating the need for users to switch back and forth between Zen Citizen and the Kaveri site. We found this to be a practical workaround for making government websites more citizen-friendly, despite having zero control or influence over modifying them.

We can’t wait to show the chatbot to you! Stay tuned 🙂