Lok Sabha Question No. 937 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2025-02-10
Subject: Promotion of Indian Languages
Ministry: EDUCATION
Asked by: Shri Ramvir Singh Bidhuri

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

## LOK  SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-937

ANSWERED ON - 10/02/2025

## PROMOTION OF INDIAN LANGUAGES

## † 937.   Shri Ramvir Singh Bidhuri:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

- (a) the  initiatives  taken  by  the  Government  to  ensure  effective  utilisation  of  Capacity Building Funds for promotion of Indian Languages; and
- (b) the  name  of  specific  programmes  being  run  or  partnerships  to  assist  creation  of literature and educational material in various Indian Languages?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (DR. SUKANTA MAJUMDAR)

(a) & (b):  The National Education Policy, 2020 mandates promotion of multilingualism and making  efforts  to  keep  Indian  languages  vibrant.  NEP  focuses  on  the  promotion  of  all scheduled  and  non-scheduled  Indian  Languages  and    provides,  wherever  possible,  for medium of instruction to be in the home language/mother tongue/local language up to at least class  5  and  preferably  up  to  class  8.    The  policy  also  provides  for  making  available  high quality text books in home language/mother tongue and encouraging teachers to use bilingual approach while teaching.    In  pursuance  of  recommendations  of  NEP,  various  stakeholders including University Grants Commission (UGC), All Indian Council for Technical Education (AICTE),  National  Council  for  Educational  Research  and  Training  (NCERT),    National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) have been instructed, for creation of literature and education materials in different languages for medium of instructions in mother tongue/Indian  Languages.    Various  Central  Government  Ministries  and  their  autonomous bodies have   been suggested to   explore the possibilities of using their capacity  building funds for promotion of Indian languages in their respective domains to create Indian language driven ecosystem for

youth to transition from education space to work place and from there to the realisation of their aspirations.

National  Council  of  Educational  Research  and  Training  (NCERT)  is  running  a Bhasha  Sangam  programme  as  also  Machine  Translation  cell  which  is  translating  various books into the scheduled languages.  Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has also asked its affiliated schools to consider using Indian languages, as enumerated in the Schedule 8 of the Indian Constitution, as the medium of instruction from Foundational stage till end of Secondary stage i.e. from pre-primary classes till class XII as an optional medium in addition to other existing options.  All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and University Grants  Commission  (UGC)  have  leveraged  Anuvadini  App  to  translate  books  for  Under Graduate and Post Graduate courses including technical books in multiple Indian languages. The translated books are available on e-KUMBH portal.  National Eligibility cum Entrance Test  (NEET),  Joint  Entrance  Exam  (JEE)  and  Common  University  Entrance  Test  (CUET) have been conducted in various Indian  languages.  Engineering education is being imparted in certain AICTE approved institutions in 12 regional languages. Course material including text  books  and  teaching  resources  are  available  on  Digital  Infrastructure  for  Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) portal in  various Indian Languages.

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has launched Mission Digital India Bhashini in the year 2022 to develop core language technologies for speech and text  translation  for  22  Scheduled  Indian  languages  in  the  open  source.  The  Bhashini  open Application  Programming  Interface  (APIs)  for  language  translation  in  text  and  voice  have been listed  on  API  Setu  (https://apisetu.gov.in).  Bhashini  APIs  are  available  for  anyone  to integrate with any application.

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