Posted On:
24 OCT 2026 2:39PM by PIB Chennai
The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), under Digital India Corporation (DIC), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in collaboration with the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, organised a technical introduction and use-case demonstration workshop on BHASHINI Udyat held at the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Auditorium on 23 October 2026. The workshop explored opportunities to apply artificial intelligence (AI)-powered multilingual technologies to address language barriers and improve access to healthcare services.
The workshop, themed “Building Health BHASHINI: Scaling Multilingual AI for Inclusive Healthcare,” brought together healthcare professionals, faculty members, resident doctors, nursing and pharmacy staff, students and technical teams at JIPMER to explore how language technologies could support communication across diverse linguistic backgrounds.
The programme was held in the presence of Shri Amitabh Nag, Chief Executive Officer, DIBD, and Dr. Ravi Kumar Chittoria, Head of the IT Wing, JIPMER, along with Dr. Saka Vinod Kumar, Medical Superintendent, JIPMER; Shri R. Kesavan, IAS, Deputy Director (Administration); Dr. Premrajan, Project Coordinator; Shri Hawa Singh, Chief Administrative Officer; Dr. Anand, Deputy Officer-in-Charge, IT Wing; and other officials and healthcare professionals.
As part of the engagement, Shri Amitabh Nag, CEO, DIBD, and the BHASHINI team also met Dr. Vir Singh Negi, Director, JIPMER, to discuss the potential of multilingual AI technologies in healthcare and opportunities for further exploration at the institution.
Addressing the gathering, Shri Amitabh Nag, CEO, DIBD, highlighted the importance of collaborative efforts in building language technologies that reflect India's linguistic diversity. He emphasised that relevant language data and domain expertise are essential to developing AI solutions suited to Indian languages and real-world requirements. He outlined the potential of multilingual AI across the healthcare continuum, including outpatient and inpatient care, nursing, pharmacy, medical education, research and community outreach. He stressed that AI should serve as an assistant to healthcare professionals, augmenting their expertise and supporting clinical practice rather than replacing human judgement. He also encouraged JIPMER's multidisciplinary teams to contribute their domain knowledge to identify practical challenges and help customise potential use cases for healthcare settings.
Providing a technical introduction to BHASHINI and the National Language Translation Mission (NLTM), Shri Shailendra Pal Singh, Senior General Manager, DIBD, outlined the capabilities of BHASHINI's language technology platform, including its services, application programming interfaces (APIs) and integration capabilities. He explained how the platform can enable developers, researchers and institutions to explore multilingual digital applications and build language-inclusive services across sectors.
The workshop featured demonstrations of BHASHINI-enabled applications and language technology solutions, showcasing capabilities in multilingual communication, voice-enabled interactions, translation, digital accessibility and language resource development. The sessions provided an overview of how these capabilities could be explored for healthcare settings and the communication needs of patients and healthcare professionals.
Discussions explored potential applications of multilingual AI in ambient clinical scribing, hospital voice assistants, multilingual patient guidance, pharmacy-related information, medical terminology and glossary development, medical education, research and community outreach. These use cases could be evaluated further for their suitability to JIPMER's requirements, subject to technical feasibility, clinical validation, data privacy and security safeguards, and applicable institutional protocols.
The discussions with Dr. Vir Singh Negi, Director, JIPMER, also covered the potential role of emerging digital technologies in strengthening patient care, medical education and biomedical research. The engagement highlighted the potential of multilingual AI to facilitate communication between healthcare professionals and patients from diverse linguistic backgrounds, alongside the need for responsible adoption, clinical validation, human oversight and appropriate data protection measures.
The workshop highlighted the potential of BHASHINI's Language-First Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to support the development of multilingual healthcare solutions. By bringing together language technology capabilities and healthcare domain expertise, the initiative provides an opportunity to explore practical approaches to reducing communication barriers and making healthcare information more accessible across languages.
Further engagement between DIBD and JIPMER could focus on identifying suitable healthcare use cases, assessing technical and data requirements, and exploring opportunities for collaboration. Any proposed integration would be subject to institutional requirements, technical evaluation, clinical validation and appropriate privacy and security safeguards.
The initiative reflects the potential of language technology to support inclusive, technology-enabled healthcare and contribute to the broader national vision of accessible digital services for citizens across linguistic backgrounds.
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AD/RJ