Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday launched the AI-powered Bharat-VISTAAR (Virtually Integrated System to Access Agricultural Resources) service, a multilingual digital platform designed to deliver real-time and personalised agricultural advisory directly to farmers.The initiative aims to make farmers smart, empowered and information-rich. Through the platform, farmers will be able to access all necessary information with a single call via their mobile phones.Addressing a gathering in Rajasthan, the minister called it a historic step toward a digital revolution in the agriculture sector. He said the initiative will provide farmers with crop-based scientific advisory services, mandi prices and weather information.”Bharat-VISTAAR would prove decisive in extending the vision of Digital India to rural India… to increase farmers’ income, it is essential to connect them not only with agriculture but also with animal husbandry, for which technology is crucial.”The government aims to empower over 140 million farmers by closing the digital divide, especially in rural and low-literacy areas. The AI tool will promote better decision-making, risk reduction, higher profitability and sustainable practices,” he said.The agriculture minister also took potshots at Rahul Gandhi, calling him a “part-time leader”.“The entire country is the family of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But, some people never hesitate to criticise him. There is a leader who has become a part-time leader and full-time dramebaaz. He has neither visited any agriculture field in his life nor has any idea about the trading techniques of farming. But he will never stop criticising PM Modi,” he said.Continuing his attack on Gandhi and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Chouhan said they never prioritised farmers’ interests during their rule.“I want to ask him some questions. Why didn’t their UPA government implement the report of the Swaminathan committee? It was only Modi who enforced its recommendation by revising the minimum support price (MSP) formula. Why did they export all the sugar instead of storing them when there was a record-breaking production in 2010? Who caused damage to those farmers?” he asked.Announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Union Budget 2026-27, Bharat-VISTAAR integrates AgriStack portals, ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) packages of practices, weather data from IMD, market prices, government schemes, soil health, pest alerts, and more into a unified, voice-first ecosystem.Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma termed the digital initiative as the beginning of a farmers’ revolution and urged farmers to make maximum use of it.A key highlight of Bharat-VISTAAR is that it is voice-first, meaning farmers can use it even without smart phones. They may call a dedicated helpline number to access services. Along with this, the platform also supports chatbots and web-based tools. An Android app is expected to be rolled out later, expanding access for smartphone users.The platform combines information from several national systems, including weather data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), mandi price data from Agmarknet, pest and disease alerts from the National Pest Surveillance System, and advisory inputs from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
