In her Budget 2026 speech earlier today, finance minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman proposed a multilingual AI tool to offer customised advisory to farmers. The minister said that the tool, Bharat VISTAAR, will enhance farm productivity, enable better decisions for farmers and reduce risk by providing customised advisory. She added that the proposed platform will also deploy AI tools on India’s Agri Stack portals. “I propose to launch Bharat VISTAAR, a multilingual AI tool that shall integrate the Agri Stack portals and the ICAR package on agricultural practices with AI systems. This will enhance farm productivity, enable better decisions for farmers and reduce risk by providing customised advisory,” said FM Sitharaman. Calling cutting-edge technologies, including AI applications, as force multipliers for better governance, she also announced a “high level” education-to-employment and enterprise standing committee. The proposed panel will suggest specific measures for embedding AI in the education curriculum from the school level and upskilling technology professionals and engineers in AI and emerging technologies. The standing committee will also recommend measures for AI-enabled matching of workers, jobs and training opportunities. Other key announcements in the Union Budget 2026 included a proposed tax holiday to foreign companies that provide cloud services globally using… Read MoreInc42 Media
