The Union Cabinet has approved a Rs 4,371.10 crore scheme to rebuild India’s official statistical system around faster and more detailed data. The Viksit Bharat Initiative for Statistical Transformation, Analytics and Research, known as VISTAR, will run from 2026-27 to 2030-31 and will be run by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). The Cabinet approved the VISTAR scheme on 4 November 2026 at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The scheme is a central sector scheme, which means the Union government funds it in full. The VISTAR scheme’s stated aim is a statistical system that is dynamic, real time and ready for the future, with data that arrives sooner, covers smaller areas and can be linked across departments. The government has tied the work to Viksit Bharat 2047, its plan for India to be a developed country by 2047.
The change matters because official statistics shape spending, interest rates and welfare. When employment or price data arrives late, or covers only part of the country, decisions rest on an incomplete picture. The VISTAR scheme is meant to shorten that lag and to fill in the smaller areas, districts and towns, where national averages hide wide differences.
VISTAR has three parts. The first covers statistical operations and the wider system around them. The second, Support for Statistical Strengthening, or SSS 2.0, supports states and union territories. The third is the eighth Economic Census, a count of business establishments across the country. The VISTAR scheme covers all statistical and data management work of MoSPI.
Under the first part, MoSPI plans to carry out 59 surveys during the 16th Finance Commission cycle, against 43 major surveys in the previous cycle. The surveys cover employment, consumption, industry and other areas that feed into national accounts and policy. More surveys, carried out more often, are meant to close gaps in what the government knows about the economy.
What the VISTAR scheme will change in data collection
The VISTAR scheme moves data collection beyond periodic surveys, census returns and administrative records. It will also draw on other sources, including mobile phone records, scanner data from shops and e-commerce records, to build indicators that arrive sooner and describe smaller areas. The aim is data that policy makers can use while a problem is still forming, rather than months after the fact.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning will be built into regular work, mainly for processing, checking and analysing data. In practice, that means using software to process, check and analyse survey data faster than manual methods allow. MoSPI also plans to digitise statistical work from end to end, from collection to release. The datasets are meant to be harmonised and ready for AI use, so figures from different surveys and departments can be read together.
The Economic Census counts business establishments across the country and gives the frame for later surveys of industry and services. The eighth census will be carried out with states and union territories, and its results will feed into the surveys that follow it.
VISTAR scheme funding and the states
Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw briefed reporters after the Cabinet meeting and said the scheme would revamp the whole statistical system and help in data upgradation. The VISTAR scheme gives MoSPI room to shift money between parts of the work as policy needs change, instead of fixing every rupee to one survey years in advance.
States and union territories get support under the second part of the scheme, since much of India’s data is collected by state statistical offices. The support covers money and technical help to raise weaker offices to a common standard, and it is the part of the scheme that reaches furthest from New Delhi. The support matters because state offices collect the raw data for many national surveys, from crop figures to household spending. Where a state office is short of staff or tools, the national figures carry the gap.
The 16th Finance Commission cycle runs to 2030-31, the same year the VISTAR scheme ends. The Press Information Bureau published the Cabinet decision on 4 November 2026, the day it was approved.