Industry body FICCI has partnered tech giant Google and others to form 'FICCI-Indian Language Internet Alliance (FICCI-ILIA)' that will work towards development of local language content for Internet in India.
The initiative was launched by Minister of State for Electronics and IT, PP Chaudhary, today.
With improved connectivity and growing proliferation of smartphones in the country, India is expected to have over 650 million users connected to the Internet by 2020, FICCI said in a statement.
There is an urgent need to make internet content more useful for Indians, many of whom do not speak English.
FICCI-ILIA will work with stakeholders across government, publishers and technology companies and building capacities of Indic publishing ecosystem, establishing standards across industry for input and discoverability and creating a framework to support innovations in Indic ecosystem, the statement said.
The initiative will also work on building awareness about the benefits of incorporating local languages content on Internet.
Chaudhary said there has been a three-fold increase in the number of e-transactions in the last two years and that the government was aiming to connect 90 per cent of India with Internet services by 2018.
He added that it is important to leverage technology to enhance quality of education and healthcare and Internet could help in making quality education and healthcare accessible to the last mile.
Also, content in Indic languages could be a game changer, he said.
Malcolm Johnson, Deputy Secretary-General of International Telecommunication Union said less than half of the global population was connected digitally.
This is due to lack of awareness about the benefits of internet, lack of regional and relevant content and affordability, he added.
Johnson said there is a need to develop products with international standards to enter the global market.
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