Lok Sabha Question No. 2142 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2024-12-09
Subject: Promotion of Indian Languages
Ministry: EDUCATION
Asked by: Shri Jugal Kishore, Shri Chavda Vinod Lakhamshi, Shri Janardan Mishra, Shri Shankar Lalwani, Shri Vijay Kumar Dubey

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

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-2142

ANSWERED ON - 09/12/2024

## PROMOTION OF INDIAN LANGUAGES

† 2142   Shri Chavda Vinod Lakhamshi:

Shri Jugal Kishore:

Shri Vijay Kumar Dubey :

Shri Shankar Lalwani :

Shri Janardan Mishra :

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

- (a) the initiatives taken by the Government to ensure effective utilization of capacity building funds by different Ministries for promotion of Indian languages; and
- (b) the  special  programmes  or  partnerships  launched/established  by  the  Government  to support the creation of literature and educational material in different 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  13  languages.    Engineering  education  is  being  imparted  in  certain  AICTE approved  institutions  in  8  regional  languages.  Course  material  including  text  books  and teaching resources are available on Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) portal in 33 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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