DoT to make mandatory for mobiles to support local languages

Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is likely to come out with regulations in 3-4 months that will make it mandatory for mobile phones to support Hindi and at least one regional language.

The move is aimed at making users communicate in local languages and access government services like e-payment through mobile phones.

"Three months down the line, there will be a regulation that will make every mobile phone sold in India mandatory to have English, Hindi and one regional language," a senior DoT official said.

The official said that to make Digital India a success, "broadband cannot be limited to English-speaking middle and upper class Indians and it needs to go down to rural areas".

Currently, there are many mobile phones available in the market which support regional languages.

The government is also running a programme called 'Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (DISHA)' to impart IT training for digital literacy.

The scheme aims to make a person IT literate so that he or she can operate digital devices such as mobile phones, tablets and the like and send and receive emails and search the Internet for information.

Besides IT literacy at a higher level, under the scheme, the citizens will be trained to effectively access various e-governance services being offered by the government and other agencies.