Uttarakhand CM launches AI voice portal to preserve Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari languages

Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Thursday launched a voice collection portal to bring Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari, three regional languages of the state, to AI platforms and help preserve them for future generations.

The campaign was launched at the chief minister’s camp office under the ‘Bhasha AI’ initiative of the AI Strategic Engineering (AiSE) Foundation, where Dhami recorded a voice clip in Kumaoni. The initiative aims to build a repository of words, pronunciations, voices and speaking styles in the three languages so that AI-based technologies can eventually understand and communicate in them.

CM Dhami said modern technology would be “crucial for preserving Uttarakhand’s folk languages, folk arts, culture and traditions”. “Languages and dialects are our identity,” he said, emphasising that Uttarakhand’s linguistic heritage should be taken to digital and global platforms through technology.

The state government wanted people living in even the “remotest villages and regions to be able to access information about government schemes in their native languages and communicate their concerns to the government using the same languages,” Dhami said.

“For this to become possible, AI systems would need to accurately understand local languages, including their vocabulary, pronunciation and different ways of speaking,” he added.

Pointing out how the same word could be pronounced differently in different parts of Uttarakhand, Dhami said that the collection of such variations through the portal would help AI systems better understand the linguistic diversity of Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari.

Sachidanand Semwal, founder of the non-profit AiSE Foundation, will lead the technical aspects of data collection, modelling, AI training and language-model validation for the portal, while Padma Shri folk singer Pritam Bhartwan will be the language expert coordinator. Shakti Prasad Bhatt is listed as the execution head.

Bhartwan said the state’s local languages carried a rich heritage of folk life, traditional songs, Jagar and cultural practices. He said the Jagar Academy would assist the initiative by helping ensure accurate pronunciation and preserving the languages’ authentic character.

“Bhasha AI initiative involves collecting words and audio samples from Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari. The long-term objective is to enable AI-based technology to understand and communicate in these regional languages,” Semwal said.