Bhumi vikas sahayk

The problem we're solving

One-line pitch: Bhopal's building rules fill 108 pages. Bhumi Vikas Sahayak gives the counter clerk a correct, cited answer in under a minute.

Background

Every house, shop or extra floor built in Bhopal has to follow the Madhya Pradesh Bhumi Vikas Rules, 2012. The rulebook runs to 108 pages and 105 rules. The numbers people ask about most, like fees, setbacks and floor-area limits, sit in tables spread across different parts of the book. The rules also keep getting amended. The latest consolidated copy stops at 6 March 2025, and Rule 2(5)(c), which covers plots up to 500 sq m, changed again on 28 August 2026.

Who suffers

• The clerk at the Bhopal Municipal Corporation building-permission counter answers the same questions all day. They need a correct answer within a minute, with the rule number to show the citizen.
• The citizen pays fees, submits plans and waits, and only then learns the plan breaks a rule, such as the front gap required for their road width.
• Small architects check the same tables by hand on every job.

Picture a citizen at the counter asking: "My plot is 200 sq m on a 9 m road. How much gap do I leave at the front, how many floors can I build, and what fee do I pay?" To answer correctly, the clerk has to find and combine several rules and tables.

Why it's hard

• Tables are easy to misread. One wrong row means a wrong setback or fee.
• The rules have more than one version. The clerk must know which version an answer is based on, and when a later amendment may change it.
• Questions come in two languages. Citizens ask in English, Hindi and Hinglish, and the official Hindi PDF uses an old font that can't be reliably extracted.
• Trust matters. A generic AI chatbot can make up rules or numbers. In a government office, a confident wrong answer is worse than no answer.

Our solution

Bhumi Vikas Sahayak is an AI assistant for the counter clerk, built on Claude. It answers from the official rulebook and nothing else.

• Fast answers in the citizen's language. The clerk asks in plain English, Hindi or Hinglish, typed or spoken. The answer comes back in seconds with a short summary the clerk can read out.
• Answers you can verify. Every answer shows the rule number, PDF page and exact quote. Each quote is checked against the actual PDF page, and the rulebook opens side by side at the cited page.
• No more misread tables. Tables are rebuilt as clean, readable tables with the exact row highlighted, and calculations are shown step by step.
• Version awareness. Every answer states the rule version it's based on, and an amendment alert warns when Rule 2(5)(c) applies.
• Honest when unsure. The tool says clearly when the rules don't cover a question. When two rules conflict, it shows both instead of guessing.
• Something to take home. One click sends a branded PDF report and WhatsApp message to the citizen, with no paid API.

Our principle

"The tool points to the rule; the clerk decides." Bhumi Vikas Sahayak is not legal advice. It makes the clerk faster and more confident, and every answer can be checked against the rulebook.

Building-permission clerks, citizens, and small architects in Bhopal find it difficult to understand the 108-page Madhya Pradesh Bhumi Vikas Rules, 2012. Information about plot setbacks, building limits, and fees is spread across complex tables. Frequent changes in the rules make it harder to find the latest information. This causes delays, increases the workload of clerks, and leads to costly mistakes for citizens. Understanding the rules in both English and Hindi is also a challenge.

Our solution is to make building rules simple and easy to access. It will help clerks, citizens, and architects get accurate answers supported by official rules within a minute. It will also highlight when the available rules do not provide a clear answer, helping users avoid confusion and mistakes.

How we used Claude to build Bhumi Vikas Sahayak

We used Claude in two ways: inside the product as the engine that answers clerks' questions, and during development as a coding assistant through Claude Code.

• Claude in the product: the AI engine

Bhumi Vikas Sahayak is built on the Anthropic Claude API (claude-opus-5). It turns the 108-page MP Bhumi Vikas Rules 2012 into a reliable assistant for the Bhopal Municipal Corporation's building permission desk.

• Long-context grounding. Instead of a vector database, the full rulebook text goes into Claude's context. Claude sees every rule, table and proviso, so it doesn't miss provisions that a keyword or chunk search would skip.
• Strict answering rules. The system prompt tells Claude to:
• answer only from the rulebook, never from outside knowledge;
• say clearly when the answer is not in the rules;
• show fee and FAR calculations step by step;
• cite every rule it uses;
• reply in the citizen's language (English or Hindi).