The Digital India BHASHINI Division under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology launched VoicERA, an open source end to end voice AI stack, at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, an expansion of India’s Digital Public Infrastructure.
The platform has been deployed on the BHASHINI National Language Infrastructure and is positioned as a national execution layer for multilingual voice and language AI.
VoicERA is designed to be open, pluggable, interoperable, cloud deployable and on premise ready. The government said it will allow secure and scalable deployment of voice systems across departments, research institutions and innovation ecosystems.
By modularising the voice stack, the platform aims to reduce duplication of effort and eliminate vendor lock in. The launch was led by Amitabh Nag, CEO of the Digital India BHASHINI Division, along with EkStep Foundation in collaboration with COSS, IIIT Bengaluru and AI4Bharat.
With the integration of VoicERA, BHASHINI expands beyond translation and language tools into real time speech systems, conversational AI and multilingual telephony at population scale.
Government departments will be able to deploy voice enabled citizen services in areas such as agriculture advisories, education support, livelihood services, grievance redressal and scheme discovery.
“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,” Nag said.
Santosh Kevlani, Voice AI Strategist and Advisor associated with the initiative, said, “VoicERA is designed as digital public good for voice, enabling interoperable, execution ready deployment without reconstructing entire technology stacks.”
Shankar Maruwada, Co-Founder and CEO, EkStep Foundation, said, “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 said the integration would accelerate sovereign language and voice capabilities and deepen inclusive AI innovation.
Officials said the rollout strengthens BHASHINI’s position as India’s population scale language and voice infrastructure, aimed at enabling secure and interoperable AI systems for next generation public service delivery across sectors and geographies.
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