BHASHINI, NHA Sign MoU to Enable Multilingual Digital Health

20 Jan 2026 CW Team

The review was organised by the National Health Authority (NHA) and brought together senior officials from the Union and State Governments, technical institutions and implementing agencies to assess progress and strengthen the adoption of digital health initiatives nationwide.

A key highlight of the first day was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the National Health Authority and the Digital India BHASHINI Division to enable multilingual translation services and AI-powered language support across NHA’s digital health platforms, including AB PM-JAY and ABDM.

The MoU was exchanged during the inaugural session in the presence of senior leadership from the Government of Odisha, NHA and partner institutions.

Under the collaboration, BHASHINI’s language technologies—covering translation APIs, speech recognition and text-to-speech tools—will be integrated into beneficiary-facing and administrative applications.

This is expected to improve last-mile service delivery, enhance citizen engagement and ensure digital health platforms are accessible across linguistic and geographic boundaries.

The national review meeting opened with a welcome address by the Secretary, Health, Government of Odisha, followed by remarks from the Chief Executive Officer, National Health Authority. Mukesh Mahaling, Minister for Health, Government of Odisha, attended as Chief Guest.

The session also marked the launch of the Health Benefit Package Manual and a compendium of best practices under AB PM-JAY, along with the exchange of MoUs with partner institutions.

Amitabh Nag, CEO, Digital India BHASHINI Division, highlighted that as digital health systems scale across the country, the use of artificial intelligence becomes essential. He emphasised that AI solutions must be multilingual and voice-enabled to deliver meaningful public value in a linguistically diverse country like India, while also strengthening citizen engagement, grievance redressal and clinical documentation.

During the deliberations, Kiran Gopal Vaska, Joint Secretary, ABDM, underlined the role of language AI in easing doctors’ time constraints through tools such as voice-to-text and natural language processing, enabling seamless patient–doctor interactions and automatic creation of electronic health records.

The MoU aligns with the Government of India’s broader vision of embedding Indian languages into Digital Public Infrastructure and advancing citizen-centric, AI-enabled governance in the healthcare sector.

The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology participated recently in the Chintan Shivir – National Review of Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), held on 19 January 2026 in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The review was organised by the National Health Authority (NHA) and brought together senior officials from the Union and State Governments, technical institutions and implementing agencies to assess progress and strengthen the adoption of digital health initiatives nationwide.A key highlight of the first day was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the National Health Authority and the Digital India BHASHINI Division to enable multilingual translation services and AI-powered language support across NHA’s digital health platforms, including AB PM-JAY and ABDM. The MoU was exchanged during the inaugural session in the presence of senior leadership from the Government of Odisha, NHA and partner institutions.Under the collaboration, BHASHINI’s language technologies—covering translation APIs, speech recognition and text-to-speech tools—will be integrated into beneficiary-facing and administrative applications. This is expected to improve last-mile service delivery, enhance citizen engagement and ensure digital health platforms are accessible across linguistic and geographic boundaries.The national review meeting opened with a welcome address by the Secretary, Health, Government of Odisha, followed by remarks from the Chief Executive Officer, National Health Authority. Mukesh Mahaling, Minister for Health, Government of Odisha, attended as Chief Guest.The session also marked the launch of the Health Benefit Package Manual and a compendium of best practices under AB PM-JAY, along with the exchange of MoUs with partner institutions.Amitabh Nag, CEO, Digital India BHASHINI Division, highlighted that as digital health systems scale across the country, the use of artificial intelligence becomes essential. He emphasised that AI solutions must be multilingual and voice-enabled to deliver meaningful public value in a linguistically diverse country like India, while also strengthening citizen engagement, grievance redressal and clinical documentation.During the deliberations, Kiran Gopal Vaska, Joint Secretary, ABDM, underlined the role of language AI in easing doctors’ time constraints through tools such as voice-to-text and natural language processing, enabling seamless patient–doctor interactions and automatic creation of electronic health records.The MoU aligns with the Government of India’s broader vision of embedding Indian languages into Digital Public Infrastructure and advancing citizen-centric, AI-enabled governance in the healthcare sector.

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