Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been celebrated as a force of economic transformation, but for millions of employed in India’s informal sector its dividends have been far out of reach. Acknowledging this disconnect, NITI Aayog has published a report called ‘AI for Inclusive Societal Development’, which was crafted jointly with Deloitte. This is the first nationwide initiative to examine how frontier technologies and AI can be leveraged to benefit India’s 490 million informal workers, which accounts for nearly half the country’s GDP but live outside formal structures of opportunity and security.
This report establishes the tone for a new era of India’s digital development, where technology is viewed not as a luxury of the organised sector, but as an enabler of inclusion and dignity of work. It is a future where AI stands as a bridge between human potential and technological possibility in support of the national vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.
From Policy Vision to Human Transformation
AI has drawn global attention of Internataional communities with a promise of innovation, automation and data-driven governance, the majority of that advancement has been in formal economies. In India, the informal sector workers still have systemic barriers lacking of social protection, irregular earnings, restricted access to digital resources and lack of verifiable credentials. The report recognizes that technology alone cannot upend such structural disparities. Lacking policy and human planning coordination, the AI power will be limited to privileged domains.
NITI Aayog has suggested a national mission: Mission Digital ShramSetu which aims to establish an enable ecosystem where frontier technologies such as AI, blockchain and immersive learning are made accessible and affordable to all workers. The mission intends to make digital systems sensitive to the needs of individuals at the margins by boosting skills, instilling trust and creating opportunities that connect every worker to formal value chains.
Mission Digital ShramSetu: A Human-Focused Technological Vision
Mission Digital ShramSetu is framed on the idea that digital inclusion needs intent, not infrastructure. It sees AI as a social leveller that links informal workers to verified digital identities, training platforms, market opportunities and welfare systems. It encourages the use of blockchain for secure credentials, immersive learning for skill training and AI-driven decision systems for job-matching and access to money.
The mission goal is not merely to integrate workers into digital platforms but to create dignified, productive and protected livelihoods. NITI Aayog emphasises that only through collaborative effort across government departments, industry leaders, research institutions, and civil society can harness AI potential into real empowerment.
As B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, CEO, NITI Aayog, has emphasized cooperation is not a choice but a necessity. Cross-functional action across research, skilling and innovation is indispensable to create concrete outcomes. The mission attempts to put in place mechanisms to ensure that AI is not restricted to technology adoption but becomes an instrument of social progress.
A National Nerve Centre for Innovation is Tech Hub
NITI Aayog Frontier Tech Hub is an ‘action tank’ for Viksit Bharat. This hub consists of over 100 government, academia and industry specialists coming together to craft a 10-year roadmap for the use of frontier technologies in over 20 sectors. Its mandate is to translate policy directions into useful deliverables through sectoral pathways to inclusive technology adoption.
The hub is a model of coordinated action driving innovation in areas like agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, education and financial inclusion. It aims to empower stakeholders with knowledge, foster partnerships and develop pilot projects that demonstrate the impact of AI on social and economic productivity. It also signals a move from reactive policymaking to proactive planning, ensuring that technological transformation benefits those historically left behind.
Vision 2035: A Connected, Productive Ecosystem
The report accompanying the Roadmap on AI for Inclusive Societal Development envisions a Vision 2035 where AI and frontier technologies transform India’s informal economy into an inclusive, efficient and trusted ecosystem. The report points out development will be based on a set of fundamental drivers that enable AI to be scalable and affordable across the nation.
The initial of these efforts is the drop in the cost of computing, which has fallen over 280 times from 2022 to 2024. Electronic technology advances combined with the Make in India drive, have been cutting hardware prices by an average of 30% annually and increasing energy efficiency by 40%. These efforts are making AI products affordable for small businesses and community-based use cases.
Secondly, expansion of connectivity is revolutionizing accessibility. As many as 740 million Indians will have access to 5G networks by 2030 including rural India. Such connectivity will make AI-powered platforms work perfectly at scale, reaching distant people with digital skilling and financial products.
By 2026, Indic Large Language Models (LLMs) will support all planned Indian languages. Edge-ready smaller AI systems will enable devices to process multimodal and multilingual inputs locally, making it possible for users to engage with digital systems in their native dialects without requiring high-performance infrastructure.
Last one is the roadmap that points to India Developing ‘Distributed Ledger Technology’ (DLT) infrastructure growing in strength, aided by national initiatives like the Vishvasya Stack and National Blockchain Framework. With its homegrown DLT market forecasted at USD 61.5 billion by 2033, India is well placed to create secure, transparent digital ecosystems that will safeguard identities, transactions and welfare disbursal.
Settling Gaps with AI: Trust, Access, Knowledge and Tools
The roadmap outlines four chronic issues in the informal economy: trust deficit, access barriers, knowledge gaps and tools inefficiency, NITI Aayog suggests how AI-powered systems can solve each of them by 2035.
1. Building Trust through Digital Credentials
Most informal workers do not have formal proof of employment or skill certification. The roadmap suggests a single trust layer based on verifiable digital credentials. Credentials such as securely stored in digital wallets, would be cryptographically verifiable and platform-interoperable. They would enable workers to access employment, credit and government schemes with a single digital identity, bringing transparency and credibility to employment relationships.
2. Enhancing Access through Multilingual Interfaces
Most of the workforce is unable to harness digital platforms because they lack low literacy and cannot understand the language. The future world will employ AI-powered, voice-operated interfaces that recognize people’s literacy levels and native languages. These would assist users in navigating applications and schemes through natural speech, without the use of text-intensive processes. This will ensure digital access does not remain exclusive to the literate or technically inclined.
3. Developing Knowledge and Skills through Adaptive Systems
The vision includes AI-driven knowledge graphs and adaptive learning platforms that provide contextual, real-time information. Employees will get personalized advice based on their profession and location, while digital skilling systems will adapt learning routes depending on personal progress and local context. The focus is on hands-on activity and task-oriented learning that is available via basic devices such as smartphones or local kiosks.
4. Revitalizing Productivity through Smart Tools
Frontier technologies like AI, robots and the Internet of Things (IoT) will transform manual labour and small-scale enterprise activities. The road map describes future visions where diagnostic AI platforms, mini-robots and wearable safety gear will enhance work efficiency, minimize risks and refine output quality. In agriculture, AI-connected IoT sensors will provide real-time monitoring of soil and weather, automated watering and optimizing inputs to increase yields.
Towards a Digitally Empowered Bharat
The NITI Aayog report warns that unless trends change, the average annual earnings of informal workers would remain at USD 6,000 in 2047 well short of the USD 14,500 level needed for India to become a high-income nation. The disparity highlights the need for urgent and collective policy intervention. The report asserts that deployable AI should not only be an economic imperative but a moral obligation of government towards the workers, who drives the country productive sector.
To avoid digital exclusion the report urges convergence between ministries, private sector companies and research institutions. It calls for mass investment in R&D to lower technology costs, increase AI-based skilling programs and enhance public digital infrastructure.
The concept of AI for Inclusive Societal Development is not merely efficiency or automation, it is about empowering humans via digital capability, access and trust. It is a model where technology augments human work and not displaces it. The Mission Digital ShramSetu and NITI Frontier Tech Hub vision portends a new chapter where India’s growth story is fuelled by inclusion, supported by data and accompanied by empathy.
This blueprint turns AI from a buzzword into an instrument of nation-building. It envisions a future in which all labourers including farming, craftsmanship or household ones can have the leverage of digital infrastructures to get a good deal and coverages. As India moves towards Viksit Bharat 2047, the agenda is loud and clear the technology should be at the service of humanity and growth needs to be accounted for not just by innovation but by inclusion.
