E-Paper
Centre launches project to produce 22,000 books in Indian languages
Union Ministry of Education & UGC launch ASMITA project to produce 22,000 books in Indian languages in 5 years, promoting Indian languages in education system.
The Union Ministry of Education and the University Grants Commission (UGC) on Tuesday launched a project to produce 22,000 books in Indian languages in the next five years.
The Project titled ASMITA (Augmenting Study Materials in Indian languages through Translation and Academic Writing) was launched by the secretary, Higher Education, Sanjay Murthy.
It is one of the several initiatives taken by the government to promote Indian languages in the education system in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. It will be a collaborative effort of the UGC and Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti, a high-powered committee under the ministry to promote Indian languages in education.
“This project aims to create a robust ecosystem for translation and original book writing in Indian languages across various disciplines within higher education. The goal is to produce 1,000 books in 22 languages within five years, resulting in 22,000 books in Bharatiya Bhasha,” the UGC said in a statement.
UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar said that under the initiative, the commission aims to produce 1,800 textbooks covering Arts, Science and Commerce streams by June 2025.
“As many as 13 nodal universities have been identified to lead this project along with member universities from various regions. The UGC has also created a standard Operating Process (SOP) for the book writing process in each assigned language. This SOP includes identification of Nodal Officers, Authors, allocation of title, subject and programme, writing and editing, submission of the manuscript, review and plagiarism check, finalisation, designing, proof-reading and e-publication,” he said.
Besides, the ministry on Tuesday also launched Bahubhasha Shabdakosh, a multi-language dictionary of Indian languages. “This initiative will be developed by the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) in collaboration with the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti. This Shabdakosh will help in using Bharatiya words, phrases and sentences for various new age domains like IT, Industry, Research, Education,” the UGC said in the statement.
