- MeitY has named the project as Natural Languages Translation Mission
- The startups will have to translate parliament and election commission records
- The government will also use the platform for furthering its own initiatives like translating videos of technical education lectures in local languages
According to a recent report by ET, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is planning to invest in 100 AI-based language translation start-ups that offer their services for different regional languages.
About the project
MeitY has named the project as Natural Languages Translation Mission. As a part of this project, the startups will have to translate parliament and election commission records that exist in an array of 22 regional languages to form as its primary database.
A senior official related told ET that they expect the industry to take it further and the government will fund 100 startups directly with seed money to build on this technology. The government will also use the platform for furthering its own initiatives like translating videos of technical education lectures in local languages.
The official further stated that while tech giants like Google currently offer translation services, they’re not accurate all the time. He added that those services are accurate if you use them for small sentences, but the accuracy goes down for longer sentences and where domain knowledge issues such as legal issues are involved.
MeitY is also reportedly in conversation with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in Pune and the Indian Institute of Science for turning this project a success.
