Textbooks for undergraduate programmes such as BA, BCom and BSc would now be available in different Indian languages. Besides Hindi, these books will be translated in Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Assamese and Punjabi, among others.

Accordingly, the University Grant Cmmission (UGC) has constituted an apex committee to prepare a roadmap and work towards bringing out textbooks in different Indian languages.

The UGC held a high-level meeting with international book publishers on Wednesday to discuss the possibilities of bringing out undergraduate English textbooks in Indian languages. During the meeting, the international publishers expressed their willingness to join hands in this national mission, the UGC said.

Representatives from Wiley India, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Cambridge University Press, Cengage India, and McGraw-Hill India participated in the interaction, among others.

UGC Chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar Told IANS, “The discussions stressed the translation of textbooks for undergraduate programmes in higher education institutions across the country in Indian languages such as Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Odiya, Bengali, Assamese, Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu.”

Kumar informed that the UGC would provide handholding to the publishers regarding the identification of textbooks, translation tools, experts for editing etc.

It was also emphasised that a model would be worked out with the publishers to provide textbooks at affordable prices in digital format, Kumar said.

The initial focus will be on translating the existing textbooks in BA, BSc and BCom programmes, which will be later expanded to postgraduate programmes.

The UGC would encourage Indian authors and academicians to write textbooks in various Indian languages and involve publishers in bringing those out.

The UGC intends to translate many textbooks into Indian languages in the next six to 12 months. The publishers’ representatives have expressed their willingness to partner in this national mission. -IANS