MeitY says the time may be right for a dedicated AI law

India's policy on artificial intelligence moved on Friday from implied to stated. S Krishnan, secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, said the government believed the time had come to look at separate legislation for AI, having so far addressed the technology's risks through provisions already on the books.

He made the point at a Confederation of Indian Industry conference, in answer to a question on AI regulation. The framing is worth holding on to: this was not an announcement of a bill, a timeline or a draft. It was a ministry saying publicly that the light-touch approach it has defended for several years has a natural end point.

The IT Rules did the work so far

The most concrete part of the government's AI position to date has been regulatory rather than legislative. Deepfakes, synthetic content and labelling obligations have been handled through the Information Technology Rules and related provisions. By that route the government can act quickly, because it does not have to pass anything.

That speed is also the argument against it. Rules made under delegated power can be revised by the executive, and a framework built for the problems of 2023 has to absorb problems nobody has named yet. A statute is slower and heavier, and it creates categories — liability, enforcement, appeal — that an amendment cannot create as cleanly.

• What exists: the IT Rules, plus existing statutory provisions, used for deepfakes and content labelling.
• What was signalled: the start of work on a dedicated AI legal framework.
• What was not offered: a bill text, a committee, a consultation deadline or an introduction date.

Two readings of the remark are available and the evidence does not yet decide between them. One is that a drafting exercise has genuinely begun and a consultation will follow. The other is that the government wants the option priced in without committing to exercise it. The phrase used in New Delhi was that a conversation had commenced, which is compatible with both.