New Delhi: India has outlined a techno-legal approach to artificial intelligence governance, seeking to balance innovation with accountability as AI adoption accelerates across sectors.
The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (OPSA) to the Government of India on Thursday released a white paper titled “Strengthening AI Governance Through Techno-Legal Framework”, detailing how governance can be embedded directly into the design, deployment and operation of AI systems.
The paper argues that traditional, standalone regulation may be insufficient to address the scale, speed and complexity of AI systems. Instead, it proposes a layered governance model combining baseline legal safeguards, sector-specific regulations, technical controls and institutional oversight mechanisms, aligned with India’s broader pro-innovation stance.
“Developing a robust and responsive governance framework is not just a regulatory necessity but a prerequisite for sustaining the momentum of technological progress,” Principal Scientific Adviser Ajay Kumar Sood said, adding that the techno-legal approach embeds safeguards into AI systems “by design” rather than as an afterthought.
According to the document, the framework aims to enable safe, trusted and accountable AI across the full lifecycle, from data collection and model training to deployment and post-deployment monitoring. It also outlines potential technological pathways—including auditability, traceability and built-in compliance tools—to operationalise governance without stifling innovation.
The white paper also flags implementation challenges specific to India, including institutional capacity, coordination across regulators and the need to align governance with the country’s rapidly expanding Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) ecosystem.
This is the second publication in OPSA’s White Paper Series on Emerging Policy Priorities for India’s AI Ecosystem. The first, released in December 2025, focused on democratising access to AI infrastructure and treating it as a shared national resource, with emphasis on datasets, affordable computing and DPI integration.
The latest paper positions India as a proactive voice in the global AI governance debate, signalling a preference for flexible, design-led regulation over prescriptive rule-making, even as concerns around AI risks, bias and accountability grow worldwide.