The Ministry of Education and the University Grants Commission (UGC) launched a project on Tuesday to develop 22,000 books in Indian languages in the next five years. The project, titled ASMITA (Augmenting Study Materials in Indian Languages through Translation and Academic Writing), was launched by Sanjay Murthy, Secretary, Higher Education, and it will be a collaborative effort of the UGC and the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti, a high-powered committee under the ministry, to promote Indian languages in education.

"This project aims to create a robust ecosystem for translation and original book writing in Indian languages across various disciplines within higher education. The goal is to produce 1,000 books in 22 languages within five years, resulting in 22,000 books in Bharatiya bhasha," UGC Chairman Jagadesh Kumar said.

Thirteen nodal universities have been identified to lead this project, along with member universities from various regions.

"The UGC has also created a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the book-writing process in each assigned language. This SOP includes the identification of nodal officers, authors, allocation of title, subject and programme, writing and editing, submission of the manuscript, review and plagiarism check, finalisation, designing, proof-reading and e-publication," Kumar said.

Besides, the ministry also launched the "Bahubhasha Shabdakosh", a single-point reference for all the words in all Indian languages and their meanings.

"This initiative will be developed by the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) in collaboration with the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti. This Shabdakosh will help in using Bharatiya words, phrases and sentences for various new-age domains like IT, industry, research, education," the UGC said in a statement.