Parliament Question: Promotion of Punjabi Language in Higher Education

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3525 ANSWERED ON 10/08/2026 Promotion of Punjabi Language in Higher Education 3525. Shri Malvinder Singh Kang: Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state: (a) the measures taken by the Government to encourage higher education, management education and social science research in Punjabi language; (b) whether any textbooks, digital learning material and research publications have been prepared in Punjabi under the National Education Policy, 2020, if so, the details thereof; (c) the details of funds allocated for this purpose during the last five years; and (d) the future roadmap for strengthening Punjabi as a medium of higher education in Central educational institutions? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (DR. SUKANTA MAJUMDAR) (a) to (d): The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 highlights the importance of multilingualism and places strong emphasis on the promotion of all Indian languages. In alignment with the objectives of NEP 2020, the Government has undertaken several initiatives for the preservation, promotion and development of Indian languages through dedicated institutions and academic programmes. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), a statutory body under the Ministry of Education, has undertaken several initiatives to promote technical and management education in all 22 Scheduled Indian Languages, including Punjabi, by facilitating the creation of a digital knowledge base and enhancing the availability of quality technical learning resources in Indian languages. The major initiatives are as follows: AICTE has made provisions for AICTE-approved Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to offer technical education in Indian languages, including Punjabi, by permitting the introduction of one additional division with 30 or 60 supernumerary seats.  AICTE launched the Technical Book Writing and Translation Scheme during the year 2021-22 to facilitate the availability of Engineering (Degree and Diploma) textbooks in Indian languages, including Punjabi.  AICTE has developed the e-KUMBH portal as a digital repository of technical textbooks in English and Indian languages, providing free access to quality technical learning resources. The portal provides free access to technical learning resources for institutions, faculty members, students and other stakeholders.  The AICTE–VAANI (Vibrant Advocacy for Advancement and Nurturing of Indian Languages) Scheme has been launched to promote the use of Indian languages, including Punjabi, in technical education. The Scheme provides financial assistance for organizing Conferences, Seminars and Workshops in 22 Scheduled Indian Languages, enabling academicians, researchers and industry professionals to disseminate knowledge, innovations and research in emerging areas of technical education and contribute to the creation of a knowledge base in Indian languages. The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), a premier body of the Government of India for research in the social and human sciences, promotes social science research through Research Projects, Fellowships, Collaborative Studies and Special Research Programmes. Under these programmes, ICSSR has supported research on Punjabi language and literature & also provides Senior Fellowships, Post-Doctoral Fellowships and Doctoral Fellowships for scholars working on Punjabi language, literature and allied themes. To strengthen the use of Punjabi and other Indian languages in higher education ecosystem, the Ministry of Education has taken several measures through its institutions and autonomous bodies. Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru, a subordinate office under the Ministry of Education, undertakes research, documentation, propagation, teaching, protection and preservation of all Indian languages. To provide quality academic resources in Indian languages, the National Translation Mission (NTM), implemented by CIIL, Mysuru undertakes the translation and publication of knowledge texts across disciplines taught in colleges and universities, while also promoting translator training and the development of translation resources. Under the Mission, knowledge texts in print and e-books, Translation Equivalents resource in History and Popular Science books have been published. In addition, 141 Punjabi translators have been trained through Intensive Training and Skill Development Programmes. To further augment the availability of language resources in Indian languages, the Linguistic Data Consortium for Indian Languages (LDC-IL), implemented by CIIL, Mysuru undertakes the development and dissemination of language datasets for Indian language including Punjabi. As on date, more than 70 datasets have been released which includes text, speech and sentence-aligned speech corpus and is also available on portal for public access at https://data.ldcil.org.Under the scheme, the Punjabi language corpus comprises a raw text corpus of over 1.01 crore words, a raw speech corpus covering 467 speakers with over 100 hours of recorded speech, a sentence-aligned speech corpus comprising 31,338 audio segments from 449 speakers with over 52 hours of recorded speech, and the Mother Tongue Parallel Text Corpus of India vol. I comprising 5,332 sentences across 152 grammatical categories covering 147 mother tongues, including Punjabi. The Ministry of Education, through CIIL, Mysuru, promotes the digitisation and dissemination of knowledge resources in Indian languages, including Punjabi, through the multilingual Bharatavani web portal (www.bharatavani.in) and mobile app. The Punjabi domain presently hosts 36 language-learning resources, 299 encyclopaedic contents, 21 PDF dictionaries, 5 text-searchable dictionaries and 1 Indian Knowledge System (IKS) resource, supporting learning, teaching and research in and about Punjabi. Central University of Punjab has established a full-fledged Department of Punjabi Language in 2019. To promote Punjabi as a medium of higher education, University has approved the policy to allow students to write their final examinations in the Punjabi language in the Department of Mass Communication and Media Studies. *******