New Delhi: The Government has been actively taking necessary measures for the introduction of Hindi as one of the official languages of the UN. A high level committee under the Chairmanship of the External Affairs Minister was constituted on 26 February, 2003 followed by a sub-Committee under the Chairmanship of the Minister of State for External Affairs in August, 2003 to look into the matter and take necessary measures.
Keeping in view this objective, the 8th World Hindi Conference was organized in New York on 13 July 2007 and its inaugural session was held at the UN Headquarters, which was attended by the UN Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-moon (9 World Hindi Conferences have been held till date all over the world). In addition, a World Hindi Secretariat has been set up in Mauritius since 11 February 2008 to promote Hindi as an international language.
On several occasions, Indian leaders have delivered statements at the UN in Hindi. Necessary arrangements were made for simultaneous interpretation of these statements in English by the Permanent Mission of India in New York. The Government of India`s sustained efforts have also ensured that the United Nations offers its programmes on the UN Radio Website in Hindi also.
The question of addition of any language including Hindi in the list of official languages of the United Nations has procedural, financial and legal aspects. As a first step, a formal resolution needs to be adopted by a majority of the 193 member states of the UN General Assembly.
No resolution has been introduced in this regard as yet.
The total cost provisioned by UN on providing services in all the current UN official languages (6 Languages) is approximately US$ 492 million for the current biennium 2014-2015. Given that this cost is for six official languages for two years, the cost for provision of services in one UN language is approximately US$ 41 million per annum.
This cost is for provision of overall services including documentation, translation, interpretation, verbatim reporting, printing etc. in all the four UN Offices viz. New York, Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi. In case of including Hindi as an official language, there would be additional cost for providing infrastructure/equipment and space for additional interpreters. Expenditure incurred towards introduction of a new official language is borne by Member States based on the scale of assessment.
This Information was given by the Minister of state in the Ministry of External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs Gen. (Retd.) Dr V K Singh in Rajya Sabha.
