The minister informed the Rajya Sabha that the Government of India has initiated a scheme known as “Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of India”. Under this scheme, the CIIL, Mysore works on protection, preservation and documentation of languages of India spoken by less than 10,000 people.
TFM Desk
Minister of Culture, Tourism and Development of North Eastern Region G. Kishan Reddy on Thursday maintained that the policy of the Union government is to promote all Indian Languages including endangered languages.
The minister informed the Rajya Sabha that the Government of India has initiated a scheme known as “Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of India” (SPPEL), as per official sources.
Under this scheme, the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore works on protection, preservation and documentation of all the mother tongues/languages of India spoken by less than 10,000 people which are called endangered languages. In the first phase of the scheme, 117 endangered languages/mother tongues have been chosen from all over India for study and documentation on a priority basis, he added.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has also initiated two schemes for protection of endangered languages, namely ‘Funding Support to the State Universities for Study and Research in Indigenous and Endangered languages in India’ and ‘Establishment of Centres for Endangered Languages in Central Universities’.
He also informed that an amount of Rs 45.89 crore has been released by the UGC and CIIL under their schemes for protection of endangered Indian languages during the years 2015-16 to 2019-20. Out of this, Rs 26.10 crore for UGC (Centres for Endangered Languages to Central Universities), Rs 10.35 crore for UGC (Funding support to State Universities), and Rs 9.44 crore for CIIL (SPPEL).