The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Survey of India (SoI) on 20 January 2026 to support the digitisation, transcription and standardisation of geographical place names (toponyms) using AI-based speech and language technologies.

The collaboration will strengthen the creation of accurate, multilingual and standardised toponymic datasets aligned with the National Geospatial Policy, 2022.

The Survey of India, as the national nodal agency for standardisation and maintenance of geographical names, undertakes large-scale toponymic field surveys to collect place names in local vernacular languages for integration into national mapping systems.

Under this collaboration, BHASHINI’s speech-to-text and language processing capabilities will be used to convert large volumes of audio recordings of place names into structured digital text, supporting the creation of a comprehensive and validated Toponymy Database covering more than 16 lakh locations.

The collaboration will support the development of the National Geographical Name Information System (NGNIS) by enabling efficient processing of field-collected audio data into local language scripts, Devanagari, Roman and other formats, ensuring consistency across national maps, digital platforms and governance systems.

The integration of automatic speech recognition, language normalisation and validation workflows will significantly enhance the speed, accuracy and scale of toponym data processing.