Govt taking number of measures to promote usage of Indic languages on internet: Meity Secretary

He noted that the government is looking at making all the government websites, starting with those of the Centre, available in Indian languages. "...as the new technologies start coming in, we are very keen to bring in the government buying as one of the ways to popularise and to provide resources to those tool providers.

The government is taking a number of initiatives, including making all government websites available in Indian languages, to promote the use of Indic languages on the internet, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney said on Tuesday. He also called on the industry to make available tools and techniques that can help enhance the availability of content in local languages, and drive adoption of Indic languages on the web.

"...enabling the tools which we are now very used to in English, I think it's very important for us to keep making an effort to bring those tools alive in all the Indian languages. Many of the multinationals, many of the top global companies that have their research centres in India...I think they have a major role to play," Sawhney said at the third edition of 'Bhashantara', organised by FICCI. He noted that the government is looking at making all the government websites, starting with those of the Centre, available in Indian languages.

"...as the new technologies start coming in, we are very keen to bring in the government buying as one of the ways to popularise and to provide resources to those tool providers. And then also (we are) very keen to see how a complete category of tools and resources can come onto the GeM platform," he added. This, he said, will make it easier for government departments across the Centre and states to discover the tools available, and make it easy for them to get those tools and start working with them.

Sawhney said the COVID period has presented a number of challenges. "...one of the things that we had hoped to bring out by now, but has got delayed on account of some of these challenges, has been the national language technology mission. It is now in almost a ready to go situation," he added.

The official said there have been extensive interactions with the research community, academia and some industry players to give shape to the national language technology mission. "I hope that in this month of December and January, we are able to actually bring it to a level where we can announce it and where we can move forward. This would have a role, not only for the central government and its ministries and departments and the academia and research players but also for the state governments," he added.

Virat Bhatia, Chairman of FICCI ICT and Digital Economy Committee, said as of 2013, there were 700 languages spoken in the country. "Vast majority, if not all of the next 500 million internet users in India will come from non-English speaking, and very likely semi urban and rural citizens of this country...The Indian language internet users are expected to grow at a CAGR of 18 per cent to reach approximately 536 million by 2022. And this will account for nearly 75 per cent of the internet user base in India," he added.

He pointed out that the role of Indic languages and language technology has become even more prominent during the pandemic. He requested that an incentive tax structure be provided by the government to support Indic language content.

"...content writers, developers, aggregators and distributors need to be provided some sort of a tax incentive, as they will eventually bring down the cost of development and foster innovation, this will go a long way. It's well known that standardisation leads to lowering of developmental costs, maximising returns and leading to future growth," he added.

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