Parliament Question: Generative Artificial Intelligence

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 5301 TO BE ANSWERED ON: 25.03.2026 GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 5301. SHRI P C MOHAN: Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state: (a) whether the Government has taken steps to promote and support startups working in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and related technologies; (b) if so, the details of funding incubation and research support programmes launched under Digital India, MeitY Startup Hub or other national innovation missions; (c) whether Bengaluru, being India’s leading technology and innovation hub has been identified for special GenAI incubation clusters or research centres and if so, the details thereof; (d) the number of Artificial Intelligence (AI) or GenAI startups currently operating in Bengaluru and the support extended to them; and (e) the future plans to strengthen India’s global leadership in AI innovation while ensuring responsible and ethical use of Generative AI technologies? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI JITIN PRASADA) (a) to (e): India’s AI strategy is based on the Hon’ble Prime Minister's vision to democratize the use of technology. It aims to address India centric challenges, create economic and employment opportunities for all Indians. Government is committed to harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the good of our people in sectors like healthcare, agriculture and education while mitigating risks associated with AI deployment. Towards this goal, Government of India approved the IndiaAI Mission in March 2024, the. Various initiatives have been undertaken under IndiaAI mission, outlined as follows: Development of India’s Sovereign Models Government is supporting Twelve (12) foundational models under the AI Mission. Models developed by Sarvam AI, BharatGen, Gnani and Socket were launched during the IndiaAI Impact Summit 2026. These models represent important progress in building India’s own AI capabilities tailored to local languages and use-cases.Promoting Indian start-ups to get global opportunities: The IndiaAI Startups Global program was launched in collaboration with Station F (Paris) and HEC Paris. Under this program, 10 Indian AI startups have been selected and supported to expand into the European market. Details are at Annexure-I. It supports Indian AI startups in accessing global innovation ecosystems and expanding into international markets. These startups are already developing innovative solutions across sectors such as governance, smart cities, document intelligence, and enterprise automation. Their work highlights the growing maturity of India’s AI startup ecosystem and its ability to build practical, deployment-ready solutions. Development of AI Applications: Further, under the IndiaAI Mission, thirty (30) applications have been selected focusing on India- specific problems. These applications belong to critical sectors notably agriculture, health, climate change and natural disaster. Details are at Annexure-II. Collaboration with other departments/ministries: Sector-specific hackathons and innovation challenges have also been organised with the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), the Geological Survey of India, Ministry of Ayush, Ministry of MSME, NFRA and National Cancer Grid (NCG) to further encourage focused AI solution development. From these hackathons and innovation challenges, 10 startups have been identified for scaling up the solutions. Strengthening AI research ecosystem in India Government is developing an extensive AI talent and research pipeline by supporting 500 PhD fellows, 5,000 postgraduates and 8,000 undergraduates. 27 IndiaAI Data and AI Labs have been established in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities through NIELIT to conduct coursework in AI, data curation, annotation, cleaning and applied data science 543 ITIs and Polytechnics across all States/UTs have been approved to set up additional IndiaAI Data and AI Labs More than 250 fellowships have already been awarded under the programme to promote high- quality research in Artificial Intelligence AI Centre of Excellence Government is establishing Artificial Intelligence Centres of Excellence (AI-CoEs) across States and Union Territories in a collaborative model State/UTs and Industry Partners. These CoEs aims to nurture skilled professionals through targeted talent development programs in emerging tech domains.In addition, 7 Centres of Excellence have been established in emerging technology domain including Gaming/ VFX, AR/VR, Blockchain, IoT at different geographical locations. Details of these CoEs are placed at Annexure-III. Responsible and safe AI: Various initiatives have been taken to promote responsible and ethical AI across multiple sectors especially on governance and education. Details are as follows: • Establishment of IndiaAI Safety Institute for AI safety, security, and developing trust with diverse stakeholders. • Diverse stakeholders including academia, startups, industry & government bodies engage through a hub-and-spoke model. • 13 Responsible AI Projects are underway covering Machine Unlearning, AI Bias Mitigation, Privacy-Enhancing Tools, AI Governance Testing, etc. (Details in Annexure-IV. ******Annexure-I The final list of 10 Startups for the IndiaAI Startups Global Program - Paris: Sr. No. Startup Name Area of Work 1 PrivaSapien Technologies Responsible AI with privacy engineering and privacy-enhancing technologies 2 CoRover.ai Conversational Gen AI platform for contextual, domain-specific human-like responses 3 Staqu Technologies (Jarvis) AI-powered audio-video analytics for surveillance, security, and governance 4 SatSure Analytics Earth Observation using satellite imagery and AI for decision intelligence 5 Storyvord AI-based video content generation from product URLs and brand context 6 VolarAlta Drone-based AI solutions for industrial inspections 7 Smartail AI-powered edtech platform for immersive learning and real-time assessment 8 Secure Blink AI-driven cybersecurity with proactive DevSecOps posture management 9 NeuroPixel.AI AI-enabled ultra-fast image editing for fashion and e-commerce 10 Voicing AI Agentic AI platform for enterprise-grade intelligent voice agentsAnnexure-II The details of shortlisted AI solution under IndiaAI Application Development Initiative are as under: Sl. Name of the Solution Solution Description Theme No. 1 Promoting regenerative In-house developed MRV Agriculture agriculture practices for a (Measurement, Reporting, and sustainable future using AI Verification) technology designed to ensure the integrity and quality of generated carbon credits. 2 Krishi Sah‘AI’yak - AI-powered conversational co-pilot Agriculture Farming Co-pilot to provide personalized advisory to farmers in Indic languages 3 Kadalcompass - We 5G-enabled device that transforms Agriculture Amplify the voice of water fishing practices using AI, IoUT, and using Hydro- advanced communication AI,Underwater com,IoUT technologies with Sensor Network 4 KissanCopilot Multilingual Powered by Dhenu's vertical LLM Agriculture Multimodal personalized for agriculture, provides personalized AI Assistant for small agricultural advisory services to holder farmers smallholder farmers. 5 Rapid, chemical-free soil End-to-end soil testing approach Agriculture testing solution using NIR leverages an offline app, AI-powered Spectroscopy & AI/ML spectral device, and ML models to models deliver timely, chemical-free soil analysis. 6 AI deep-tech driven quality SAAS platform to provide objective Agriculture assessment of Maize quality assessment of maize including price estimation & sales pipelining. 7 AI-Driven Live Fish AI-driven solution that optimizes Agriculture Logistics and Mortality aquaculture operations Reduction in Aquaculture 8 QScan AI-powered IoT solution that Agriculture captures critical data throughout the fresh produce lifecycle, providing real-time analysis of food quality and actionable insights to sellers. 9 Heatwave Resilience: Integrates AI-based climate Climate Integrating AI-based forecasting with health data to Advanced Forecasting for develop a targeted risk classification Extreme Heat Events system for heat-health impacts10 Multi-Hazard hazard management system to Climate Susceptibility Mapping predict Landslides, Debris Flows and Flash Floods 11 DeepFlood: Rapid flood Advanced flood inundation mapping Climate inundation mapping using tool using SAR data and deep Vision Transformers and learning models for real-time, Satellite Data automated flood detection 12 ⁠Moskeet: Climate impact AI-powered platform integrates real- Climate on mosquito-borne time climate data with mosquito diseases tracking to predict and prevent disease outbreaks. 13 End to End AI Cloud AI cloud platform for radiology Healthcare Platform for Radiology diagnosis, integrating innovative Diagnosis technologies such as CV, GenAI, NLP, Dicom, mobile, and cloud computing 14 NIDAAN (iNtegrated lung qXR, an advanced AI tool for Healthcare health screening & interpreting chest X-rays (CXR), tuberculosIs Detection detects & localizes 30+ findings. through Ai At National scale) 15 Impactful AI solution, early detection of vision threatening Healthcare preventing preventable retinal abnormalities blindness, for socio- economic transformation. 16 AI Powered Wearable AI Enabled Hardware Platform for Healthcare Technology for Detection Joint Pain Diagnostics and & Diagnosis of Rehabilitation Segments of Musculoskeletal Joint Healthcare Health Pain. 17 VoxelBox Neuro-informatics platform that Healthcare allows to map the functional maps / connectomics of the human brain 18 Development of Ocellux: Portable, affordable and highly Healthcare An AI-Based Solution for accessible retina imaging device Enhanced Early Diabetic powered by AI for early detection of Eye Screening in INDIA. eye diseases like Diabetic Retinopathy, AMD & Glaucoma19 Revolutionizing healthcare AI-powered personal doctor Healthcare using doctor-led AI available 24x7 and free of cost, designed to assist people when they are sick, monitor their health through wearables, and act as a health coach to prevent diseases. 20 AI/ML enabled MafPro MafPro handheld detector provides a Healthcare device platform for cancer radiation-free, non-invasive, safe and staging, localization, and cost-effective solution that can margins. reliably detect and adequately evaluate metastases in lymph nodes using AI/ML based algorithms 21 Readabled (Online web-based application designed to Learning Dyslexia Training) help children with dyslexia improve disabilities phonetic awareness through interactive exercises. 22 Voice fusion AI AI application to provide assistive Learning support to individuals with SLDs in disabilities multiple Indian languages 23 ScreenPlay - a digital game Digital, game-based screening tool Learning based screening tool for designed to identify children aged 3 disabilities autism and related to 6 who may be at risk for autism or disorders. related developmental conditions 24 Jiveesha AI-powered diagnostic platform for Learning early detection of SLDs disabilities 25 Adaptive Learning and Advanced AI techniques to detect Learning Detection for SLDs Specific Learning Disabilities disabilities (SLDs) such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. 26 Special Educator AI AI-driven system designed to Learning address India’s shortage of special disabilities educators and support children with SLDs. 27 ConvoZen.AI by NoBroker AI-powered conversational platform Governance Technologies that automates customer engagement across channels like chat, voice, email, and social media, offering fast, personalized, and multilingual support. 28 AI contact center AI-powered technologies like Governance machine translation, NLP, ASR and TTS, and multilingual voice recognition to enhance governance by improving communication and accessibility across India’s linguistic diversity29 Adalat AI: AI solutions for AI-powered platform provides real- Governance Courts time multilingual transcription, translation, live case flow management, and WhatsApp chatbots to streamline courtroom operations 30 Gov.Civis.Vote AI-powered Digital Public Governance Infrastructure designed to transform public consultations in India by making citizen engagement more inclusive, scalable, and comprehensiveAnnexure-III Details of the Centres of Excellence (CoEs) operational in Emerging Technologies Sr. No. Name of the CoEs Partnership 1 Gaming, VFX, Computer Vision & Govt. of Telangana, IIT Hyderabad, IIIT AI at Hyderabad Hyderabad, Qualcomm, Hyderabad gaming associations such as Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association (HYSEA) and Telangana VFX, Animation and Gaming Association (TVAGA) 2 Virtual Augmented Reality (VAR) Govt. of Odisha and IIT Bhubaneswar CoE at Bhubaneswar 3 Blockchain CoE at Gurugram Govt. of Haryana, IBM and PadUp Ventures 4 Centre of Excellence – IoT, NASSCOM Gurugram, Haryana 5 Centre of Excellence – IoT, NASSCOM Gandhinagar, Gujarat 6 Centre of Excellence – IoT, NASSCOM Bengaluru, Karnataka 7 Centre of Excellence – IoT, NASSCOM Vishakhapatnam, Andhra PradeshAnnexure-IV The details of the selected projects under “Safe & Trusted AI” Pillar are as under: NAME OF THE SELECTED APPLICANT TITLE OF THE PROJECT THEME Machine IIT Jodhpur Machine Unlearning in Generative Unlearning Foundation Models Synthetic Data IIT Roorkee Design and Development of Method Generation for Generating Synthetic Data for Mitigating Bias in Datasets; and Framework for Mitigating Bias in Machine Learning Pipeline for Responsible AI AI Bias National Institute of Technology Development of Responsible Mitigation Raipur Artificial Intelligence for Bias Strategy Mitigation in Health Care Systems Explainable AI DIAT Pune and Mindgraph Enabling Explainable and Privacy Framework Technology Pvt. Ltd. Preserving AI for Security Privacy IIT Delhi, IIIT Delhi, IIT Robust Privacy-Preserving Machine Enhancing Dharwad and Learning Models Strategy Telecommunication Engineering Center (TEC) AI Ethical IIIT Delhi and Tools for assessing fairness of AI Certification Telecommunication model Framework Engineering Center (TEC) AI Algorithm Civic Data Labs ParakhAI - An open-source Auditing Tool framework and toolkit for Participatory Algorithmic Auditing AI Governance Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham Track-LLM, Transparency, Risk Testing and Telecommunication Assessment, Context & Knowledge Framework Engineering Center (TEC) for Large Language Models Deepfake IIT Jodhpur (CI) & IIT Madras Saakshya: Multi-Agent, RAG- Detection Tool Enhanced Framework for Deepfake Detection and Governance IIT Mandi & Directorate of AI Vishleshak: Improving Audio- Forensic Services, Himachal Visual Deepfake Detection and Pradesh Handwritten Signature Forgery Detection with Adversarial Robustness, Explainability & Domain Generalization IIT Kharagpur Real-Time Voice Deepfake Detection SystemBias Mitigation Digital Futures Lab & Karya Evaluating Gender Bias in Agriculture LLMs- Creating Digital Public Goods (DPG) for Benchmarking and Fair Data Work Penetration Globals ITES Pvt Ltd & IIIT Anvil: Penetration Testing & Testing & Dharwad Evaluation Tool for LLM and Evaluation Generative AI ********