New Delhi, 10 September (H.S.):

The Digital India Bhashini Division, in collaboration with the Language Department of the Maharashtra Government, organised a workshop at Mantralaya in Maharashtra. The workshop aimed to discuss the potential of multilingual and voice-based artificial intelligence and explore ways to make digital services, government information, and applications available to citizens more accessible in their preferred languages.

The workshop emphasised that language-based AI technologies can play a significant role in making digital governance more inclusive and citizen-centric. Particular focus was placed on developing such technologies in Marathi and other Indian languages so that citizens can interact more easily with digital services in the languages they use in their everyday lives.

During the workshop, the Bhashini team conducted a live demonstration of its multilingual AI capabilities. The demonstration showcased technologies such as speech recognition, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, language translation, and voice-based interaction. It was highlighted that integrating these technologies into government services could make communication between citizens and digital systems more seamless and user-friendly.

The workshop also discussed the need for high-quality and representative language data. Experts emphasised that the participation of language specialists, government institutions, educational institutions, and citizens is essential for developing AI systems tailored to local requirements. Such collaboration can help build robust language resources for Marathi as well as other Indian languages.

In this context, Bhashini’s ‘Bhashadaan’ initiative was also highlighted as an important effort. The crowdsourcing platform provides citizens with an opportunity to contribute language-related data, thereby helping develop better digital resources for Indian languages.

The workshop held at Maharashtra Mantralaya is being viewed as an important step towards strengthening cooperation between the Central and State governments. Its objective is to build a multilingual digital ecosystem in which language is not a barrier to accessing digital services, participating as citizens, and achieving digital empowerment, but instead serves as an enabler.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar