Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday said the Centre has recently decided to hold government job recruitment test, conducted by the SSC, in 15 languages so that the youth of the country do not miss any opportunity.

This historic decision will give impetus to participation of local youth and encourage regional languages, he said, addressing the 14th Hindi Consultative Committee meeting of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

"It has been recently decided to conduct the government job test in 15 Indian languages so that the language barrier does not let any youth of the country miss the job opportunity," said Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel.

In addition to Hindi and English, the question paper will be set in 13 regional languages i.e. Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Odia, Urdu, Punjabi, Manipuri (also Meiti) and Konkani, he said, referring to the recruitment test conducted by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC).

"Notable progress has been made in the last more than nine years under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to promote the Indian regional languages besides the official language Hindi," the minister said.

The decision will result in lakhs of aspirants taking part in the examination in their mother tongue/regional language and improve their selection prospects, he said.

Singh said there had been persistent demands from different states to hold SSC exams in languages other than English and Hindi.

"The government appointed an expert committee to look at this aspect too amongst other things (review of scheme and syllabus of examinations conducted by the Commission). Though the policy was initiated with the Official Language Rules, 1976, significant progress has been made only in the last five-six years," he added.

Singh said the Staff Selection Commission recently unveiled the format for candidates to write their examination in 15 languages, and plans are afoot to allow written tests in all 22 scheduled languages.

"The JEE, NEET and UGC exams are also being conducted in 12 of our languages," he said.

In UPSC, there is still a dearth of higher studies subject books but efforts are on in coordination with the Education Ministry to promote specialised books in Indian languages, the minister said.

The first MBBS course in Hindi in the country was launched in October last year in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. And now Uttarakhand has become the second state to launch an MBBS programme in Hindi, he said.

Calling for adoption of common terminology from English and other languages, Singh said Madhya Pradesh could take the lead in introducing medical education in Hindi by adopting words such as "nucleus" and "amoeba" verbatim rather than wasting time and resources in trying to cook up a translation, according to a Personnel Ministry statement.

He said Prime Minister Modi has taken a very historic decision in the new National Education Policy (NEP) by giving importance to the mother tongue of students in primary, technical and medical education.

"PM Modi has given a call to provide medical and engineering education in regional languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati, Bengali. Medical education has commenced in Hindi and soon engineering studies will also begin in Hindi and translation of engineering books has commenced in eight languages across the country, and soon students across the nation will be able to pursue technical and medical education in their mother tongue," Singh said.

Calling for more frequent meetings of Hindi review committees in the government departments, the minister said "as we promote Hindi, other Indian languages too would gain and prosper".

"Real impact would be felt as the mindset changes, resulting in social change," he added.

On the occasion, Singh distributed awards and certificates of appreciation.

He also released a book on freedom fighter "Veer Savarkar" (Vinayak Damodar Savarkar) by Dr K C Ajay Kumar, a member of the Hindi Consultative Committee and official publications of the Ministry, the statement said.

-With PTI Input