The policy of the Government is to promote all Indian Languages. The National Education Policy, 2020 lays a lot of stress on promoting multilingualism and making efforts to keep Indian languages vibrant. The Government of India in the National Education Policy has provided that wherever possible the medium of instruction up to at least class 5 and preferably up to class 8 will be in the home language/ mother tongue/local language/regional language. The policy emphasizes that teaching should be in their home language/local language and learning of Indian languages should be integrated with school and higher education, so that students have the option of studying in any Indian language.

Allocation of funds is not done on language basis rather they are provided as per the requirement and utilization. However, under the Ministry of Education, the Government of India provides financial support to language institutions through the following schemes/heads:

(a) Directorate of Hindi (CHD)
(b) Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology (CSTT)
(c) Central Institute of Indian Language (CIIL)
(d) Grants for Promotion of Indian Languages (GPIL)
(e) Grants for Central Universities (Sanskrit) through UGC.

Central Hindi Directorate and Kendriya Hindi Sansthan work for the promotion of Hindi Language, while the Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology works to evolve technical terminology in all Indian Languages.

Under the Grants for Promotion of Indian Language (GPIL) scheme, Government of India provides grants to Kendriya Hindi Sansthan (KHS), Maharishi Sandipani Rashtriya Ved Vidya Pratishthan (MSRVVP), Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT), National Council of Promotion of Sindhi Language and National Council of Promotion of Urdu Language for the promotion of Hindi, Veda, Classical Tamil, Sindhi and Urdu respectively.

Further, The Government of India is promoting Sanskrit Language through three Central Universities viz Central Sanskrit University, New Delhi, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri National Sanskrit University, New Delhi, National Sanskrit University, Tirupati. Funds are provided to these universities for teaching and research in Sanskrit Language leading to award of degree, diploma or certificate to the students.

The budget allocation over the last five-year period for the promotion of various languages is given below:

(in Lakh)

The Excavation report for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons was received by Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in January 2023 and has been vetted by experts and deficiencies in methodology, chronology, interpretations, presentation and analytical rigor, etc, have been communicated to the lead excavator.

List of archaeological excavations and budget allocated in the past five years are given at Annexure.

This information was given by Union Minister for Culture and Tourism Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

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Sunil Kumar Tiwari

pibculture[at]gmail[dot]com

ANNEXURE