New Delhi: VoicERA was officially launched on India’s national language technology backbone during the India AI Impact Summit 2026, marking a significant advancement in the country’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) ecosystem.
The launch was announced by the Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), under the Digital India Corporation (DIC), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), as part of efforts to strengthen multilingual AI innovation in India.
The launch ceremony was led by Amitabh Nag, CEO of the Digital India BHASHINI Division, along with EkStep Foundation, in collaboration with COSS, IIIT Bengaluru, and AI4Bharat.
The introduction of VoicERA represents a major milestone in enabling voice-based digital access across India’s public services ecosystem.
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Deployed on the BHASHINI National Language Infrastructure, VoicERA establishes a national execution layer for multilingual Voice and Language AI.
Designed to be open, pluggable, interoperable, cloud-deployable, and on-premise ready, VoicERA enables secure and scalable deployment of voice systems across government departments, research institutions, and innovation ecosystems. By modularising the voice stack, VoicERA reduces duplication of effort and eliminates vendor lock-in.
The integration expands BHASHINI’s capabilities from translation and language technologies to real-time speech systems, conversational AI, and multilingual telephony at population scale.
With VoicERA, departments can rapidly onboard voice-enabled citizen services across sectors including agriculture advisories, education support, livelihood services, grievance redressal, citizen feedback, and scheme discovery.
VoicERA: Voice to Become the Most Natural Interface for Bharat
Speaking at the launch, Amitabh Nag, Chief Executive Officer, Digital India BHASHINI Division, stated: “With BHASHINI as national language infrastructure and VoicERA as the open execution stack, India is entering a new phase of Digital Public Infrastructure where voice becomes the most natural interface for Bharat.
This framework enables secure, scalable multilingual systems while empowering innovators to build on a shared national foundation. It is about dignity, access, and ensuring every citizen can speak to the State and be understood. This marks the beginning of a new Voice Era, and in this era, India owns its voice.”
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Santosh Kevlani, Voice AI Strategist and Advisor associated with the initiative, stated, “VoicERA is designed as digital public good for voice, enabling interoperable, execution ready deployment without reconstructing entire technology stacks.”
Shankar Maruwada, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, EkStep Foundation, stated, “Over the past three years, BHASHINI has demonstrated the power of language as Digital Public Infrastructure. With VoicERA, that vision now extends to voice, strengthening equitable access for citizens at national scale.”
Mitesh Kapra of IIT Madras stated, “The continued expansion of BHASHINI, integrated with VoicERA, will accelerate sovereign language and voice capabilities and deepen inclusive AI innovation.”
The launch further strengthens BHASHINI’s position as India’s population-scale language and voice infrastructure, enabling secure, inclusive, and interoperable AI systems that power next-generation public service delivery across sectors and geographies.
VoicERA is available for live demonstration at the BHASHINI Pavilion and the EkStep Pavilion, Hall No. 3, First Floor, Bharat Mandapam.
