The funds allocated for the promotion of Indian languages have seen a significant drop this year in the Union Budget 2022. The amount allocated for this scheme in earlier years was above Rs 400 crore, however, it has dipped to Rs 250 crore for the financial year 2022-2023. The funds were not increased or decreased in the year 2021-2022 where Rs 433 was allocated, same as the previous year but this was a dip when compared to Rs 561.47 crore allocated in the year 2019-2020, as per data provided to the Parliament.
The 'Grants to Institutes for Promotion of Indian Languages' category includes "provision for Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Kendriya Hindi Sansthan, National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, National Council for Promotion of Sindhi Language, Central Institute of Classical Tamil and National Initiative for Quality Higher Education in Indian Languages."
How are the funds divided amongst languages?
While there is a lack of data available to determine the spending for various languages under this scheme in the year 2020-21, what we do know is that the government spent Rs 378.62 in total. What stands out is a response made to a question asked in the Lok Sabha, in February 2020, regarding the funds allotted for the promotion of Indian languages.
In their response, the Ministry of Culture stated that the grants released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (now Ministry of Education) to the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan in the years 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 amounted to Rs 198.31 cr, 214.37 cr and 231.15 cr. Meanwhile, the allocation for Central Institute of Classical Tamil was Rs 10.59 cr, Rs 4.65 cr and Rs 7.70 cr.
The response did not mention funds allocated for other languages under the scheme such as Urdu or Sindhi. Although, it did mention that the amount spent on Telugu at the Central Institute of Indian Languages was Rs 10 cr, Rs 9 crore and Rs 10.7 cr in 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20. This amount was the same for the Kannada language under the institute
