Karnataka’s Cabinet has approved the Karnataka Agritech Mission-2026, setting up a state-backed programme that will use satellite data, drone surveys and weather forecasting to support farm-level decisions across crop planning, pest management, disease control and sowing schedules. The decision was announced by Chief Minister D K Shivakumar after the Cabinet meeting, alongside approvals for education, welfare, infrastructure and medical projects.
The agriculture department has received approval for a survey project estimated at about Rs 36 crore. The programme’s stated design places remote sensing, field-level data capture and weather intelligence at the centre of agricultural advisory systems, an approach that could expand the state’s use of digital public infrastructure beyond urban and enterprise technology use cases. Karnataka’s move also reflects a wider shift in state-level technology policy, where AI and geospatial systems are increasingly being embedded into sector-specific governance rather than treated as standalone innovation projects.
The Cabinet also approved an AI Centre of Excellence at IIIT Raichur, with an allocation of roughly Rs 12 crore to Rs 15 crore over five years. Shivakumar said the centre would be the first such initiative in the Kalyana Karnataka region. The location is significant because it places AI capacity building outside Bengaluru, which has traditionally dominated Karnataka’s technology ecosystem. The centre’s long-term relevance will depend on faculty hiring, compute access, industry collaboration and whether it can produce applied AI work connected to agriculture, public services and local enterprise needs.
The broader Cabinet package included recruitment of 15,000 teachers in the School Education Department, approvals for hostels, road works, irrigation, drinking water and groundwater recharge projects, and welfare measures for backward classes and nomadic communities. While these decisions span multiple departments, the technology-facing elements are concentrated in the agritech mission and the Raichur AI centre.
The approvals place Karnataka among the Indian states trying to operationalise AI through line-department use cases rather than policy declarations alone. For agriculture, the use of drones, weather systems and satellite data can support more granular advisories if integrated with field extension networks and farmer-facing delivery channels. For higher education and regional skilling, the Raichur AI centre gives the state a platform to develop AI capability in a region that has not historically received the same technology investment density as Bengaluru.
