Key Points
- MeitY’s BHASHINI team demonstrated speech recognition and translation tools at Maharashtra Mantralaya
- Proposed MahaBHASHINI concept aims to cover tourism, transport and public services in Marathi
- BHASHINI platform currently supports 36 Indian text languages and processes 24 million daily AI requests
Maharashtra is exploring a state-specific multilingual artificial intelligence platform that would enable government services in Marathi and other Indian languages, following a workshop held at the state secretariat on Thursday (September 10).
The Digital India BHASHINI Division, operating under MeitY, conducted the workshop at Maharashtra Mantralaya in partnership with the state’s Language Department. Officials discussed integrating speech recognition and translation technologies into public services, with a particular focus on a proposed MahaBHASHINI initiative.
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The MahaBHASHINI concept, as discussed at the workshop, would create a Maharashtra-focused language AI system covering tourism, transport and other citizen-facing services. The platform would allow residents to interact with government digital systems using spoken Marathi rather than typed English commands.
AI demonstrations
The BHASHINI team demonstrated several language processing capabilities during the workshop. These included speech recognition, which converts spoken words into text that computers can process, and text-to-speech conversion, which enables systems to respond verbally in Indian languages.
Translation services shown at the event would allow documents and interfaces to move between languages automatically. Voice-enabled interaction, where citizens can speak commands rather than type them, was also demonstrated as a potential feature for public service applications.
The workshop identified the need for high-quality language data specific to Maharashtra. Government departments use specialised terminology that general-purpose translation systems may not recognise accurately. Building datasets that include administrative and legal terms used in state government documents would be necessary for the system to function effectively.
BhashaDaan initiative
BHASHINI operates a crowdsourcing programme called BhashaDaan that allows citizens to contribute language samples. These contributions help train the AI systems to recognise regional dialects, pronunciation patterns and vocabulary that may differ from standard language forms.
By the numbers
Key figures from this story
- 36
- Indian text languages supported by BHASHINI
- 24 million
- daily AI inferences processed by the platform
- 800+
- government websites powered by BHASHINI
The workshop brought together state government officials and language experts to identify specific applications where Marathi-language AI would be most useful. Priority areas discussed included tourism information services, transport booking systems and general government enquiry portals.
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BHASHINI currently supports 36 Indian languages for text processing and 23 languages for voice applications. The platform also handles 35 international languages. According to MeitY, the system powers more than 800 government websites and processes 24 million AI inferences daily, meaning 24 million requests where the system analyses language input and generates a response.
The cumulative total of such processing requests has exceeded nine billion since the platform launched. The National Hub for Language Technology, part of BHASHINI, operates as one of the largest language AI processing facilities in developing nations.
The Centre-state engagement follows similar BHASHINI workshops conducted with other state governments to expand multilingual access to digital public services.
Your Questions, Answered
What is MahaBHASHINI?
MahaBHASHINI is a proposed Maharashtra-focused multilingual AI platform that would enable government services in Marathi and other Indian languages, covering tourism, transport and citizen-facing applications.
How many languages does BHASHINI support?
BHASHINI supports 36 Indian languages for text processing, 23 Indian languages for voice applications and 35 international languages.
What is BhashaDaan?
BhashaDaan is BHASHINI’s crowdsourcing initiative that allows citizens to contribute language samples and data to help train AI systems to recognise regional dialects and vocabulary.
How many AI requests does BHASHINI process daily?
BHASHINI processes 24 million AI inferences daily, according to MeitY, with cumulative requests exceeding nine billion since launch.