TribeEyeAI: IIT Kharagpur’s ₹3.5 Cr Leap to Restore Tribal Vision

In a moment that quietly redefines what innovation in India can look like, IIT Kharagpur’s Professor Sudip Misra and his consortium have secured a ₹3.5 Crore ANRF research grant to build TribeEyeAI — a deep-tech platform designed to prevent blindness in tribal communities. It is not a health-tech startup, nor a welfare scheme, nor a pure academic exercise. It is a new kind of intervention where science becomes social infrastructure.

The mission is urgent. In Tripura, tribal communities constitute nearly a third of the population, many living across forested and hilly terrain. Specialist eye care lies hours away. Medical camps come once or twice a year. There are no follow-up systems, no electronic health records, no continuity of care. Research data from the project notes that more than two-thirds of tribal patients have little or no awareness of eye health, and most cataract patients arrive when both eyes are already affected — by which point livelihoods, mobility, and dignity have already eroded .

Preventable blindness here is not biology — it’s logistics.

A New Grammar for Healthcare Innovation

TribeEyeAI asks a bold question: What if specialist-grade diagnostics could travel into the village instead of waiting for patients to travel to the hospital? The answer blends engineering, anthropology, and empathy. The team is creating a portable retinal imaging system powered by on-device AI that screens for glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and cataracts — three diseases that cripple working adulthood across tribal belts. The device syncs with long-range LoRa networks capable of transmitting encrypted medical data across several kilometres without relying on cellular infrastructure, which remains patchy in these regions .

Crucially, the platform speaks Kokborok, Chakma, and Darlong in voice and text — a detail easy to overlook unless you’ve lived in spaces where medical care arrives in the wrong language.

The Consortium That Makes It Credible

Behind TribeEyeAI is an unusually aligned coalition: engineers from IIT Kharagpur, information systems experts from IIT Kanpur, ophthalmology specialists at Tripura Medical College, and researchers from The ICFAI University, Tripura, supported by NGOs and ASHA workers who understand tribal healthcare not as a dataset, but as lived experience. This mix is rare in Indian research, where disciplines often run parallel instead of converging.

Among the key contributors is Dr. Joy Lal Sarkar, whose portfolio spans AI for healthcare, drug side-effect detection, mental health advocacy, fitness initiatives, and digital archiving. His work reflects a newer generation of Indian scientists who measure innovation not by publication count, but by communities transformed. On the clinical side, Dr. A.K. Chakma, one of Northeast India’s most respected ophthalmologists, anchors the mission in real-world patient needs rather than lab abstractions.

From Research to Rollout

What makes TribeEyeAI compelling is its product thinking. The roadmap doesn’t end at prototyping; it travels through validation, community training, and scale. ASHA workers and PHC staff become frontline eye health operators. Tele-health specialists enter the loop for complex diagnosis. Emergencies such as retinal detachment or optic neuritis can be escalated in real time — a scenario unthinkable under today’s sporadic camp-based systems.

If the pilot succeeds in Tripura, it opens a blueprint for Bastar, Koraput, Jharkhand, Nagaland, and beyond. And if it succeeds in India, it becomes globally relevant across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America — where indigenous and tribal communities face similar barriers of terrain, infrastructure, and healthcare deserts.

The Bigger Story

India’s tech narrative is often dominated by unicorns, fintech rails, and consumer marketplaces. TribeEyeAI offers a different storyline — one where deep tech solves for dignity, not convenience. It showcases a version of Indian innovation that cares about the last citizen, not just the next user.

For tribal communities, reclaiming sight is more than medical improvement — it’s economic participation, mobility, and self-respect. For Indian science, TribeEyeAI is a reminder that research doesn’t have to choose between impact and excellence.

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