Bhashini is Bridging the Digital Divide with AI-Driven Multilingual Solution: Amitabh Nag, CEO, Digital India Bhashini Division
The Government of Maharashtra, in collaboration with Bhashini, Government of India, has launched Maha Hackathon Challenge 1.0 to harness AI for governance, disaster management, and multilingual communication. With Bhashini’s real-time speech translation, Maharashtra aims to enhance citizen engagement and digital accessibility. Amitabh Nag, CEO of Digital India Bhashini Division, discusses how AI is breaking linguistic barriers, empowering governance, and fostering innovation.
Here are the edited excerpts:
Bhashini aims to bridge linguistic barriers in India using AI-driven speech and text translation. How do you envision its impact on digital governance and citizen service accessibility across different regions?
Mission Bhashini, through AI-driven language technologies, bridges linguistic barriers in India, enhancing digital governance and citizen service accessibility. By offering multilingual support, it ensures that citizens across various regions, including rural areas, can access essential services in their preferred languages. This inclusivity improves communication with government platforms like e-Gram Swaraj, Aadhaar, and CPGRAMS, fostering better engagement. Ultimately, Bhashini empowers citizens, reduces the digital divide, and ensures efficient, accessible, and transparent service delivery across India’s diverse linguistic landscape.
With Maharashtra integrating Bhashini’s live speech translation AI into governance, what are the key challenges in implementing real-time multilingual communication at scale, and how is your team addressing them?
Bhashini has partnered with the Government of Maharashtra by signing the Bhashini Rajyam MoU, facilitating initiatives like the Maha Hackathon Challenge under the Bhashini App Mitra and Pravakta programs. This collaboration aims to develop innovative citizen-centric applications and enhance governance through multilingual AI-driven solutions.
The problem statement focuses on leveraging multilingual AI in governance by building chatbots and other utilities that enable AI-powered chatbots for public services, AI-based fraud detection, multilingual grievance redressal and Bhashini OCR-powered document handling and verification.
A key challenge in real-time multilingual communication is addressing the diverse dialects of the Marathi language. To tackle this, Bhashini and the state government are working in a co-correlation model to enhance service delivery, ensuring accessibility even in the remotest villages of Maharashtra.
How does Bhashini align with the broader Digital India mission, and what future innovations or collaborations can we expect to enhance language accessibility in government services and beyond?
Bhashini aligns seamlessly with the Digital India mission by democratising access to digital services through multilingual AI-driven solutions. By enabling real-time language translation, AI-powered chatbots, OCR-based document handling, and multilingual grievance redressal, Bhashini bridges linguistic barriers, ensuring inclusive governance and citizen engagement.
Looking ahead, future innovations may include deep-learning models for regional dialects, More enhanced speech-to-speech translation with user controls, and enhanced voice first interfaces for seamless interaction with government services.
Collaborations with state governments, startups, and global tech partners is further accelerating the development of language accessibility tools, making digital governance truly inclusive for the last mile.
What are the biggest technological challenges in real-time multilingual translation, and how is Bhashini addressing them?
Real-time multilingual translation presents several challenges, which Bhashini addresses through innovative solutions like Vani Anuvaad. For the first time, AI models have been integrated into a unified pipeline at the powerful Bhashini NHLT platform, enabling seamless translation between Indic languages.
One major challenge is processing-intensive computation with low internet connectivity, as the translation process involves different technologies working together to enable speech-to-speech translation. Another critical aspect is accuracy and dialect adaptation in Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology. Bhashini is tackling this by continuously enhancing its AI models to improve dialect recognition and overall translation precision, ensuring accessibility across diverse linguistic landscapes while working with state governments under the Rajyam Initiative.
Currently, Bhashini’s real-time translation tool covers multiple verticals, including one-to-one, one-to-many, public address translation systems, and multilingual broadcast systems, forming a key part of Vani Anuvaad’s larger application. Moving forward, we plan to develop more use cases based on the requirements received from various state governments to further enhance the platform’s capabilities.
What role does Bhashini play in fostering AI innovation, and how can startups and developers contribute to this initiative?
Bhashini is playing a pivotal role in fostering innovation in AI through enabling components of voice around dynamic products in the market.
We have Bhashini Startups and Industries Ecosystem Unit (Udyami and Udbhav) that serves as a dedicated hub for empowering startups and industries to leverage the Bhashini technology stack in building multilingual applications. Focused on addressing India’s diverse linguistic needs, the unit drives Bhashini API adoption by organising hackathons and innovation challenges, inspiring startups to develop solutions that bridge language and digital divides. Through strategic partnerships with industry leaders and startup associations, the Digital India Bhashini Division (DIBD) fosters a vibrant innovation ecosystem.
What’s next for Bhashini in terms of AI innovation, and how do you plan to scale its impact across India?
Next for Bhashini, the focus is on expanding its “Voice-First” multilingual system, bridging digital and literacy gaps. With collaborations across government ministries, startups, and organisations, Bhashini aims to scale its impact by improving AI models and creating domain-specific language solutions. Outreach will target Tier II and Tier III cities, ensuring inclusive access. Innovations like voice-based payments, multilingual government portals, and chatbot integrations will empower citizens, particularly in underserved areas, enabling seamless access to essential services across India.
About the Hackathon
Maha Hackathon Challenge 1.0: Driving AI-Led Innovation for a Smarter Maharashtra
Empowering Maharashtra Through AI and Technology
In collaboration with Bhashini, the Government of India, the Government of Maharashtra has launched the Maha Hackathon Challenge 1.0 to harness AI and technology for solving real-world governance and disaster management challenges. Launched on February 11 in the presence of key dignitaries including Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, and IT Minister of Maharashtra Ashish Shelar, and in the esteemed presence of the Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik and Principal Secretary, IT Parrag Jaiin Nainutia, this initiative aims to drive AI-led innovation and digital inclusivity across the state.
From AI-driven governance solutions and real-time speech translation to drone-based disaster management and anti-drone security, this hackathon is set to revolutionise Maharashtra’s digital landscape. Participants will develop scalable, indigenous, and impactful solutions, shaping a future-ready Maharashtra while addressing critical administrative and security concerns.
The challenge will unfold in multiple stages—ideation, prototype enhancement, solution building, and deployment—to ensure the best innovations see real-world implementation. The Maharashtra government is committed to fostering technological empowerment and invites innovators to “Innovate for Maharashtra, Build for Maharashtra.”
For more details, visit: https://bhashini.gov.in/sahyogi/startup/maha-innovation
