Govt spent Rs 43.48 crore over 5 years to propagate of Hindi worldwide: MEA

The Union government has made "sustained efforts" to publicise Hindi and spent Rs 43.48 crore over the past five years to propagate the language worldwide through diplomatic missions and posts, the External Affairs Ministry said Thursday.

Responding to a question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs V Muraleedharan said the government has made sustained efforts for acceptance of Hindi as an official language of the United Nations and its propagation across the world.

According to UN's procedure, getting Hindi accepted as an official language involves adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly with at least two-thirds of its membership. Besides, the additional expenditure will have to be borne by all UN member-states.

Muraleedharan said the government has allocated and spent Rs 43.48 crore over five years to publicise Hindi worldwide through diplomatic missions and posts abroad.

"The details of the funds spent over the last five years are: Rs 2.88 crore (2014-15); Rs 10.88 crore (2015-16); Rs 5.01 crore (2016-17); Rs 3.54 crore (2017-18) and Rs 21.17 crore (2018-19)," he said.

He said India signed an MoU with the UN Secretariat in March 2018 for an initial period of two years to increase the volume and frequency of Hindi content produced by the UN.

"In July 2018, UN launched Hindi versions of its social media content on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Hindi website of UN News was initiated on the occasion of World Hindi Day in January 2019. The UN News audio bulletins in Hindi (UN Radio) are being released on a weekly basis," he said.

Listing out the steps, the minister said Indian leaders have delivered statements at the UN in Hindi, including the prime minister's statement at the 69th UN General Assembly in September 2014 and at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015 and a World Hindi Secretariat has been set up in Mauritius since February 2008 to promote Hindi as an international language.

He said efforts to propagate Hindi worldwide are also being made by our diplomatic missions abroad in coordination with the Indian Council of Cultural Relations through activities such as establishment of chairs of Hindi language in universities abroad, scholarship and fellowships to foreign students to study Hindi, internationally distributed publications such as "Gagananchal", and holding of international conferences pertaining to Hindi.