IIT Kanpur AI Family Score to aid welfare targeting

IIT Kanpur has demonstrated an AI-powered Family Score system that assesses household socio-economic conditions using existing government data. The system, developed with the Andhra Pradesh government, outperforms conventional surveys at minimal cost and effort. The findings were appreciated by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, highlighting potential for targeted welfare delivery. IIT Kanpur's AI-powered family score could redefine how governments identify welfare needs Kanpur, September 8 IIT Kanpur has demonstrated the potential of AI to help governments identify households that may require welfare support using data already available within government systems. The institute's AI-powered Family Score system assesses the socio-economic conditions of households without requiring additional surveys, offering a faster and more cost-effective approach to welfare identification at scale, a release said. "Family Score is an effort to use AI and existing government data to better understand the socio-economic conditions of families and enable more targeted welfare delivery. - Prof Manindra Agrawal" It stated under the collaboration between IIT Kanpur and the Government of Andhra Pradesh, Phase 1 focused on testing whether AI could provide a reliable alternative to conventional household surveys for assessing socio-economic conditions. The findings indicate that an ensemble of AI models developed by IIT Kanpur can outperform conventional surveys in determining the socio-economic conditions of households, while requiring minimal cost and effort from the government. This approach addresses a key challenge in welfare delivery, identifying the right families at scale without the time, manpower and resources required for large-scale household surveys. The findings were presented to the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, N Chandrababu Naidu, and senior government officials by representatives of IIT Kanpur. The Chief Minister and the Andhra Pradesh government team appreciated the capabilities demonstrated by the system and its potential to help identify and reach the right families with targeted welfare support. The IIT Kanpur team included Prof Manindra Agrawal, Director, IIT Kanpur; Prof Nitin Saxena, Dean, Wadhwani School of AI & Intelligent Systems (WSAIS), IIT Kanpur; and Manish Srivastava, Chief Executive Officer, Airawat Research Foundation (ARF). The Family Score system uses existing government data to assess the socio-economic well-being of families and classify them into defined categories. It uses an ensemble of classical machine learning models trained on approximately 15 government-owned datasets that provide indicators of household socio-economic conditions. The models are calibrated against socio-economic scores generated through a statewide survey. Once trained, they can generate dynamic Family Scores for households represented in the available datasets, without requiring a new survey or additional data collection, it added. Talking about the initiative, Prof Manindra Agrawal, said, as per the release, "Family Score is an effort to use AI and existing government data to better understand the socio-economic conditions of families and enable more targeted welfare delivery. The initial results are encouraging and demonstrate the potential of this approach to reduce the dependence on costly and time-consuming surveys. Our collaboration with the Government of Andhra Pradesh reflects our aim to put rigorous and responsible AI in service of citizens, while ensuring that the process remains transparent and open." Prof Nitin Saxena, said, as per the release, "The strength of this system is not just its accuracy but its interpretability. Every score comes with a reason, so officials remain fully in control of the decision. That is what responsible AI for governance should look like." Manish Srivastava said, as per the release, "The team from the AI CoE for Sustainable Cities presented AirawatOS - an operating system for a city. It unifies data from satellites, sensors, records and field reports into one trusted, live picture, and uses AI to turn it into evidence-backed, traceable recommendations - while people stay in charge of every decision. Rather than replacing any department's authority, it connects them: each agency keeps control of its own data, while a shared network lets them coordinate securely across floods, permits, and projects that span many institutions." Under the MoU between IIT Kanpur and the Government of Andhra Pradesh, Phase 2 will extend the Family Score system to households across the state and will integrate the system into the AP SDC. This phase shall also include a large state-wide validation and calibration exercise. The current coverage in the government-owned datasets indicates that family scores can be generated for roughly 1.35cr of the 1.72cr (~75%) total households in Andhra Pradesh. The Family Score system has been developed by IIT Kanpur's Wadhwani Center for Developing Intelligent Systems (WCDIS) and Wadhwani School of AI & Intelligent Systems (WSAIS), in collaboration with the Airawat Research Foundation (ARF), it added. — ANI