India's health and technology ministries have collectively outlined a range of policy and funding measures to embed AI into cancer screening and care. The information was provided by Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on April 1, 2026.
At the centre of the push is the Cancer AI & Technology Challenge (CATCH) Grant Programme, run by IndiaAI — the implementation agency of the India AI Mission under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in collaboration with the National Cancer Grid (NCG). IndiaAI and NCG launched CATCH to support the development and deployment of AI solutions to strengthen cancer screening, diagnostics, treatment support, and healthcare operations across India. The programme provides up to ₹50 lakh per project to selected teams comprising technology innovators and clinical institutions, with grants co-funded by IndiaAI and NCG. Successful pilot projects may also be eligible for an additional scale-up grant of up to ₹1 crore, facilitated by IndiaAI, for wider deployment across the NCG network or through national implementation pathways.
On the governance side, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched two initiatives at the India AI Impact Summit. SAHI : Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare for India is a national guidance framework for safe, ethical, evidence-based, and inclusive adoption of AI across India's healthcare system. BODH : Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI was developed in partnership with IIT Kanpur and the National Health Authority, and provides a structured mechanism for testing and validating AI solutions before deployment at scale. It allows developers to evaluate models against real-world anonymised health data without that data leaving its original location.
The digital infrastructure layer is also being expanded. The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) provides a sandbox environment and integration toolkits that allow health technology developers to integrate their applications and software, including AI screening tools. The National NCD Portal, developed under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (NP-NCD), provides a digital platform for population enumeration, risk assessment, screening, referrals and continuum of care for common cancers such as breast, cervical and oral.
NHM SPIP funding for the NP-NCD programme rose from ₹60,659 lakh in 2021–22 to ₹1,51,052 lakh in 2025–26, reflecting a significant step-up in public investment backing these AI-enabled screening efforts.
