The North News
Chandigarh, January 1
The Punjab government has announced plans to deploy artificial intelligence in agriculture to boost productivity, sustainability and farmers’ incomes, officials said on Thursday. The initiative will be implemented with support from a Centre of Excellence set up at Indian Institute of Technology Ropar. A high-level review meeting was chaired in Chandigarh by Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian to assess progress and chart a roadmap for field-level rollout of AI-driven solutions.
Mr Khudian said advanced technologies must deliver measurable benefits for farmers and assured full government backing for pilot projects and the scaling up of successful interventions across districts. He directed officials to facilitate the installation of automatic weather stations, strengthen farmer engagement for field data collection, support horticulture clusters and expand AI-based solutions to improve livestock productivity.
The minister also welcomed IIT Ropar’s plan to introduce national-level courses in precision agriculture and AI in agriculture, aimed at skill development and capacity building of government officers. Officials said reserving seats for students and officers from Punjab would help strengthen the state’s agri-technology workforce.
The collaboration is expected to position Punjab as a leading model for AI-driven agricultural transformation, improving resource efficiency, climate resilience and long-term sustainability.
During the meeting, Dr Pushpendra P Singh, an associate professor at IIT Ropar, outlined key initiatives under the Centre of Excellence, supported by the central government with a financial outlay of about ₹310 crore. These include AI-based crop advisory systems, multilingual farmer chatbots, digital crop models, yield estimation tools, soil health analytics, weather intelligence platforms and smart livestock management applications.
Senior officials from the agriculture, animal husbandry and allied departments were also present.
