The new education policy in India promotes learning through regional languages in schools as this not only helps to keep these languages alive, but also makes it easier for students to learn in their mother tongue. In line with this policy, District Collector of Sriganganagar in Rajasthan, Sourabh Swami, IAS, is now promoting the Punjabi language in the district by launching an app called ‘Learn Punjabi’, in collaboration with National Informatics Centre (NIC).  

The reasons is, Sriganganagar is also known as the ‘Punjab of Rajasthan’ as it has a high ratio of people belonging to the Punjabi background. In fact, the regional language of the district is Punjabi. The district is located at the northernmost part of the state and borders both Punjab and the international border of India and Pakistan. It is an agricultural district and is irrigated by Ganga Canal, Indira Gandhi Canal and Bhakra Canal tributaries. 

DEMAND FROM PUNJABI STUDENTS

Mr. Sourabh Swami, who had earlier started a programme called ‘E-Kaksha’ for school students in Bikaner, told Indian Masterminds, “Students in the district mostly belong from Punjabi families. However, with Hindi and English being given more priority, Punjabi is considered as the third language in schools. Another issue is that there are not much Punjabi speaking teachers in government schools because of which, children have to choose other languages. Due to this, they lose hold in their regional language.”

Hence, to cater to the demand of Punjabi students in the district and with his past experience of launching initiatives in the field of education, Mr. Swami launched a mobile application called Learn Punjabi in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre.

PUNJABI LEARNING APP

Explaining the app, Mr. Sourabh Swami said, “The application consists of three major things. Firstly, it consists of the whole Punjabi grammar which is used to understand the language properly and even learn to read and write it. Secondly, the use of Punjabi alphabets is explained in the app. Thirdly, videos of teachers teaching in Punjabi have also been started and is being showcased on the app for students studying in classes 5 to 12.”

Through this app, students who had to leave Punjabi as a subject due to unavailability of teachers have now got a chance to learn it again. Mr. Swami, who had earlier served as Director, Secondary Education Department, Bikaner, had launched an initiative called E-Kaksha where classes were taken online using videos. However, none of those videos were in Punjabi language. Hence, to encourage the students in Sriganganagar to learn this regional language, he took the initiative of producing videos in Punjabi language separately. 

A translator and a chatbot system have also been included in the application for quick redressal of any problems faced by the people who are using it. The application, which was launched only recently, is getting a very good response from people not only from within the district, but also from bordering states like Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, and even from NRIs living in overseas countries like Canada UK, US, New Zealand and Australia who are using the application and are availing the benefits.