WORKING GROUP ON LANGUAGES DEVELOPMENT AND BOOK PROMOTION FOR FORMULATION OF THE NINTH FIVE YEAR PLAN (1997-2002).

 INTRODUCTION

Languages being the most important medium of communication and 2education, their development occupies an important place in the National Policy on Education and Programme of Action. Therefore, promotion and development of Hindi and other is languages listed in the schedule VIII of the Constitution including Sanskrit and Urdu on the one hand and English as well as other foreign languages on the other, have received due attention. In fulfilling the constitutional responsibility, the Department of Education is assisted by the following autonomous organisations and subordinate offices:-

(1) Central Hindi Directorate, New Delhi, with its 4 Regional Centres.

(2) Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology, New Delhi.

(3) Kendriya Hindi Shikshan Mandal, Agra, with its 5 Centres.

(4) Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, with its 4 Regional Centres and 2 Urdu Training and Research Centres.

(5) National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, New Delhi.

(6) National Council for Promotion of Sindhi Language, Vadodara.

(7) Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi with its 7 Vidyapeethas.

(8) Maharishi Sandipani Rashtriya Veda Vidya Pratisthan, Ujjain.

(9) Two Sanskrit Deemed to be Universities at New Delhi and Tirupati.

2. In addition, pursuant to the National Policy on Education 1986, the Government of India have formulated variety of Schemes/programmes for the preservation, promotion and development of Languages. Also non-governmental agencies have evolved schemes and programmes for the promotion and development of languages. Financial assistance is provided by the Government of India to NGOs for implementing various schemes/programmes.

3. Literary works are the forte of Indian language publishing which lacks the variety of subjects covered by the Indian books in English. Even in the field of books for children only two languages Bangla and Marathi offer something comparable to the English books. The inability of most of the Indian languages to satisfy the varied interests of readers, coupled with the near non-existence of good bookshops, has created a situation of almost total dependence of publishers on the bulk purchase of books. Since the criteria of selection in such purchases is not

always the quality of books, these have given rise to the indiscriminate publication of books at excessively high prices. At another level, low-priced paperback editions of popular reading material are brought out and sold through the book stalls at public places,such as the railway stations and the bus stands. Generally being of indifferent quality, these do not satisfy the requirements of serious readers. According to the readership surveys conducted by the National Book Trust, the main difficulties pointed out by the readers, with regards to the availability of quality reading material in Indian languages, were:

(i) limited range of subjects covered;

(ii) high prices; and

(iii) lack of good bookshops.

Therefore there is urgent need to step up publication of reasonably priced quality reading materials, in English, Hindi and all other Indian Languages included in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution, on a variety of subjects and for different age-groups and to promote the habit of reading and create awareness about the copyright. The National Book Trust, an autonomous organisation is assisting the Ministry in this regard.

4. The Working Group on Language Development and Book Promotion, in the context of the formulation of 9th Five Year Plan (1997-2002), under the Chairmanship of Prof. Sukumar Azhicode, Chairman, National Book Trust reviewed the various ongoing schemes/programmes for the promotion and development of languages and Book Promotion. A copy of the Planning Commission order dated 5th February, 1996 indicating inter-alia the composition of the Working Group and its Terms of Reference is at Annexure-I. The Working Group constituted 8 sub- groups to study various aspects of languages development and book promotion to assist the Working Group. Scheme-wise review and recommendations of the Working Group are in Chapter II to IV.