The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), under the Digital India Corporation (DIC), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, in collaboration with the Department of Information Technology & Electronics, Government of Uttar Pradesh, organised the BHASHINI Rajyam Workshop: Lucknow Chapter. The workshop showcased AI-powered language technologies and explored their role in enabling language-first governance, accelerating multilingual digital transformation and making public services more accessible, inclusive and citizen-centric across Uttar Pradesh.

The workshop was attended by Hon'ble IT Minister, Government of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Sunil Kumar Sharma, Principal Secretary, IT & Electronics, Government of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Alok Kumar, Managing Director, UPDESCO, Shri Sameer Verma, senior government officials, representatives from academia, startups, ecosystem partners and technology experts.

Delivering the welcome address, Shri Sameer Verma, Managing Director, UPDESCO, welcomed participants and highlighted the importance of multilingual technologies in accelerating Uttar Pradesh's digital transformation and strengthening citizen-centric governance.

The workshop showcased BHASHINI's vision of building Language-First Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), where language is no longer a barrier to governance, innovation or citizen participation. Participants were introduced to BHASHINI's AI-powered language technologies, including Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Neural Machine Translation (NMT), Text-to-Speech (TTS), Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Transliteration, Language Identification and multilingual APIs, demonstrating how these capabilities can be integrated into government platforms and citizen-facing services.

The BHASHINI team conducted live demonstrations of multilingual AI applications, showcasing speech recognition, translation, document processing and voice-enabled technologies. Participants also explored governance use cases across departments and discussed opportunities to integrate multilingual AI into public service delivery, improving accessibility and efficiency for citizens across the state.

The workshop featured sessions on the BHASHINI Mitra programme for government partnerships, departmental multilingual AI use cases, the National Hub for Language Technology (NHLT) and developer APIs. Discussions also focused on research collaborations, innovation programmes, and the identification of new multilingual AI use cases across government departments.

The workshop also featured an interactive Q&A session, where participants engaged with the BHASHINI team to discuss department-specific requirements, implementation strategies, and opportunities to adopt multilingual AI across governance in Uttar Pradesh.

Addressing the participants, Shri Amitabh Nag, CEO, Digital India BHASHINI Division, highlighted Uttar Pradesh's emergence as a leading destination for investment, manufacturing, Global Capability Centres, startups and technology. He emphasised that language should never become a barrier to opportunity and underscored BHASHINI's mission of empowering citizens through multilingual AI, enabling every individual to access digital services and opportunities in the language they understand best.

Hon'ble IT Minister, Government of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Sunil Kumar Sharma, said:

"Uttar Pradesh is committed to building a digitally empowered and inclusive future where technology reaches every citizen, irrespective of the language they speak. Initiatives like BHASHINI are strengthening our vision of accessible governance by enabling citizens to interact with digital public services in their preferred language. We look forward to expanding the adoption of multilingual AI across the state's governance ecosystem."

Principal Secretary, IT & Electronics, Government of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Alok Kumar, said:

Language AI is poised to redefine public service delivery by enabling inclusive, intelligent, and citizen-first governance. Through strategic collaboration with BHASHINI, Uttar Pradesh can accelerate UP AI Stack integration under the UP AI Mission, strengthen its startup ecosystem, and build a robust multilingual AI infrastructure that powers every department. Also, multiple departmental AI Use cases can leverage BHASHINI APIs & models on top of Uttar Pradesh AI - enabled data lake with integrated & interoperable AI - ready datasets.

By leveraging Public Digital Infrastructure, open APIs, interoperable AI frameworks, and responsible AI, the state can unlock scalable GovTech solutions, enhance accessibility, streamline decision-making, and deliver seamless digital services in every language. This initiative has the potential to position Uttar Pradesh as a national leader in AI-driven governance, digital transformation, innovation-led economic growth, and next-generation public service delivery.

Shri Sameer Verma, Managing Director, UPDESCO, said:

"The BHASHINI Rajyam Workshop provided an excellent platform to explore practical applications of multilingual AI for governance. By bringing together government departments, technology partners, startups and academia, the workshop has opened new avenues for collaboration to develop innovative, language-first solutions that strengthen digital service delivery and improve citizen experiences across Uttar Pradesh."

Shri Amitabh Nag, CEO, Digital India BHASHINI Division, said:

"Knowledge has no language. Innovation does not depend on language. Talent is not limited by language barriers. As Uttar Pradesh continues its remarkable growth journey, BHASHINI is empowering every citizen to participate in that growth by making AI and digital public services accessible in the language they are most comfortable with."

The workshop marked another milestone in advancing multilingual AI and language-first digital governance in Uttar Pradesh.

About Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD)

The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), under the Digital India Corporation (DIC), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), is India's national platform for AI-powered multilingual digital inclusion. Today, BHASHINI powers over 800 government websites, has enabled more than 9 billion cumulative AI inferences, processes over 24 million AI inferences daily, and supports 36 Indian text languages, 23 Indian voice languages and 35 international languages, making Digital Public Infrastructure more accessible through Language AI. 

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