India Sets One-Month Target for AI Regulation Consultation, With Industry Bearing Much of the Burden

India’s government expects to publish an AI-regulation consultation paper within a month, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on October 8, 2026. The document would lay the groundwork for future rules. His proposed approach puts safety first and asks technology companies to carry much of the responsibility for managing AI-related harms, according to Storyboard18.

Speaking at an event centered on a World Bank report on AI, Vaishnaw asked his department to prepare a regulation-focused paper. He identified five priorities: safety, a human-first approach, skills, inclusion and societal harms. The announcement sets a target for opening the policy discussion, rather than introducing a finished regulatory framework.

Company responsibility, not legislation alone

Vaishnaw described an approach combining technological safeguards, legal measures and industry participation. He singled out cybersecurity, user safety, deepfakes and possible psychological harms as areas where companies would need to take substantial responsibility. That places the businesses developing and deploying AI systems at the center of the proposed response to risks.

We have always maintained that AI and technologies cannot be regulated just by having a law. We have to bring a techno-legal solution.

Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology

Convincing deepfakes and psychological risks

The minister warned that increasingly believable deepfakes could mislead people and influence them into making harmful decisions. His concern was not simply the existence of AI-generated content, but its growing ability to convince users. He described that improving quality as a source of wider societal consequences.

He also explicitly asked for psychological risks to be included in the consultation. Vaishnaw linked those concerns to the way AI can lure people, warning of possible psychological disorders. These were the minister’s stated concerns and proposed subjects for the paper, not findings from a clinical study presented with the announcement.

Skills and inclusion belong in the framework

The proposed agenda extends beyond preventing harmful outputs. Vaishnaw acknowledged that AI’s economic gains could be uneven: some groups could benefit substantially from increased productivity, while others could feel excluded. Skills and inclusive development would therefore sit alongside safety in the consultation, with human welfare guiding the government’s approach.

The consultation would seek input before the government proceeds with regulation, the Free Press Journal reported. Feedback is intended to help shape company responsibilities and the safeguards needed to protect users. The paper is thus a step toward deciding the rules, with responses expected to inform India’s subsequent approach to AI governance.

The precise regulatory obligations and enforcement mechanisms remain to be outlined. Industry responsibility is a stated direction for the proposed framework; the duties companies would actually face are still unresolved.