Language no longer a barrier at railways: BHASHINI and CRIS sign MoU; Will offer multilingual AI solutions

In a major push to break language barriers for millions of passengers, the Digital India Bhashini Division (DIBD) and the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to integrate BHASHINI’s advanced language technologies into key passenger-facing platforms. The MoU was signed on Monday by Amitabh Nag, CEO of BHASHINI, and GVL Satya Kumar, managing director of CRIS.The collaboration will bring BHASHINI’s language tools to CRIS managed services like the National Train Enquiry System (NTES) and RailMadad. These tools include automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-text translation, text-to-speech (TTS), and optical character recognition (OCR), a press release by the ministry of electronics and IT said. The aim of this initiative is to ensure that passengers can access critical railway information and services in 22 Indian languages, removing language as a barrier for millions of daily users. “This collaboration will transform how millions of passengers engage with railway services daily,” said Amitabh Nag. “Through BHASHINI’s AI capabilities, we are ensuring that language is no longer a barrier to accessing vital public services.”Kumar also lauded the move, saying, “CRIS is proud to partner with BHASHINI to implement inclusive, AI-powered solutions across our digital platforms. This will enhance accessibility, transparency, and efficiency in our passenger-facing services.” Beyond just translation, the partnership will also work on co-developing multilingual chatbots and voice assistants for real-time passenger support. Plans are in place to roll out these tools across railway websites, mobile apps, kiosks, and even call centres. Over-the-counter enquiry counters will also be equipped with multilingual digital interfaces. The rollout will be supported by both cloud-based and on-premise infrastructure, with technical workshops and pilot deployments expected to begin shortly. This initiative falls in line with the vision of Digital India and further strengthens the country’s global leadership in language AI.