Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Shri Durgadas Uikey informed Lok Sabha today that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has launched the beta version of Adi Vaani mobile application on 1^st September, 2025. The beta version is currently available on android platform. The project aims to enable real-time text and speech translation between Hindi, English, and multiple tribal languages (and vice versa), while offering interactive language learning tools for early learners and students. It also focuses on digitally preserving indigenous knowledge, folklore, and cultural heritage for future generations, in collaboration with national efforts on digital literacy, healthcare, and cultural preservation to extend its reach and impact.

Its key features include Text-to-Text, Text-to-Speech, Speech-to-Text, Speech-to-Speech translation, Optical Character Recognition for digitizing and translating tribal manuscripts, and a comprehensive repository with bilingual tribal dictionaries, primers, and subtitle integration for dignitaries’ speeches in tribal languages. Health and cultural awareness content, such as timely delivery of sickle cell disease information, is provided in native languages. Currently, real-time text-to-text and speech-to-text translation is live for Santali, Mundari, Bhili, and Gondi, with Garo and Kui nearing completion. In the second phase, more tribal languages are proposed to be included in Adi Vaani.

The Government is assessing the total outreach and number of downloads of the app. The Ministry has also received feedbacks and testimonials from communities across the country. As the app is in beta phase and testing is in process, reach, usability and effectiveness of the application among Scheduled Tribe communities, particularly in Kerala, is not undertaken.

To provide multilingual support, the Ministry has initiated more tribal languages and is also exploring the modality to provide some of the features in offline mode. Adi Vaani is an online platform which is accessible from anywhere with internet access on multiple devices or platforms. For the digital literacy training and infrastructural assistance, Ministry is engaging with the communities through TRIs and language experts. However, there is no such activity being carried out in the State of Kerala.

No, there hasn’t been any State-specific consultations, impact studies or corrective measures with respect to Kerala.

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