Bilingual Output Requirements Under Rules

A Central directorate asked its new agent to 'do all citizen replies in Hindi' because a Rajbhasha inspection was due. The agent complied. It also started issuing English-only sanction letters because the template library was English and the Hindi pass was labelled 'chat'. The inspection did not praise the chat. It asked for the bilingual instruments. The chat logs were not the instruments.

This explainer is for compliance officers and DPOs who are being told that a multilingual model is a Rajbhasha programme. It is not. The Official Languages Act, 1963 and the Official Languages (Use for Official Purposes of the Union) Rules, 1976 still sit on the file. So do your State's own official-language statutes, which are not a copy of the Union rules.

We will hedge on purpose. Circulars, region classifications and the list of documents that must go out in both Hindi and English are live administrative text. What was true in a 2011 amendment may have a later instruction. Read the Act, the Rules on rajbhasha.gov.in, and your latest departmental order before you paste a sentence into an RFP.

Not legal advice. This is a map so you stop buying a feature and calling it a statutory control.

What the Union law actually does

Article 343 of the Constitution makes Hindi in Devanagari the official language of the Union, and keeps English for official purposes as the law provides. The Official Languages Act, 1963 is that law for a large part of day-to-day Union work. It is not a software specification. It is not a licence to ignore English. It is not a command that every chatbot utterance be Hindi.

Section 3 of the Act is the clause vendors wave at without opening. It continues English alongside Hindi for Union official purposes, and it requires both Hindi and English for certain classes of documents — resolutions, general orders, rules, notifications, administrative reports, licences, tender notices, and other listed instruments, subject to the live text. Rule 6 of the 1976 Rules puts the duty on the person who signs those documents to ensure both versions exist.

That last sentence is the one the agent cannot perform. A model can draft. A competent officer signs. If the Hindi and English texts diverge on a number, a date or a name, the signer still owns the divergence. An agent that emits only one language for a section 3(3) instrument has not made the office modern. It has made the signer irregular.

The 1976 Rules also classify communications by region and by whether staff have a working knowledge of Hindi. Those classifications have been amended. Tamil Nadu has a specific treatment in the Rules that you must not flatten into a national chatbot policy. Open the current Rules. Do not quote a training-course summary.

States are not the Union, and districts are not the secretariat

States notify official languages under their own laws. A Kannada-first file in Bengaluru is not a Rajbhasha failure. A Hindi-only file in a State whose law points elsewhere can be a State-law failure even if it would have been praised in a Central region A office. Do not copy a Central bilingual clause into a State RFP without counsel.

Municipal bodies, universities, and societies sitting on government grants sit in yet another layer. Their duty may come from the grant, from a State Act, from a court order, or from none of those. Write the source. 'We should be bilingual because India is bilingual' is not a source.

Citizens will still write in the language they have. A statutory bilingual duty on specified Union instruments is not the same as a service-design choice to accept a grievance in Santali or Khasi. Do not collapse those two into one tender row. One is a legal instrument. The other is a coverage decision you must test.

What an agent may emit, and what it may only draft

Split the channels. Informal status replies, IVRS prompts, and helpdesk chat are service design. They should follow your public-facing language policy, which you write. Sanction letters, notifications, tender notices, licences and other instruments that fall under the live section 3(3) list are not chat. They need a bilingual pack and a human signer.

If the agent drafts those instruments, it must draft both languages from the same structured facts, not translate one after the officer has signed the other. Post-hoc translation is how Hindi and English numbers drift. Generate from the store. Then let the signer see a diff of facts: names, amounts, dates, file numbers.

Do not send a specified instrument through an undeclared hosted translator. That is not a Rajbhasha control. It is a transfer. The DPDP map and the official-language map are different maps. You need both.

A working split. Confirm against your latest Rajbhasha circular and counsel. This table is not the statute.

Output	Typical treatment in a Central office	What the agent is allowed to do
Section 3(3)-class instrument (check live list)	Hindi and English, signer responsible	Draft both from structured facts; never issue
Internal noting in a region where Hindi is required	Follow current Rules and office order	Draft; officer pastes into eOffice
Citizen chat / SMS status	Service policy, not automatically 3(3)	Reply in the citizen's language if you tested it
Tender notice on CPPP / GeM	Often bilingual as an instrument	Do not let the agent publish; bilingual pack first
Error message on a public form	Service policy	Same language as the form; see the failure-message guide

What a Rajbhasha inspection will actually open

They will not grade your BLEU score. They will ask for the instruments, the Hindi and English versions, and the officer who signed. They may ask for the check-points your office already maintains under existing orders. A dashboard titled '92 percent Hindi utterances' is a curiosity. It is not the register.

If you used an agent, be ready to show that the Hindi text was not a decorative machine pass over an English original that still governs. Where English is to remain authoritative for a class of documents, say so in the file instead of pretending the two texts are twins.

Two offices, two mistakes

Objections you will hear — and what to do with them

These are the lines that stall the file. Answer them in the room, then put the answer in the note. A spoken answer without paper will be forgotten by the next officer.

If the model is good at Hindi, we are compliant.

Compliance is about which documents exist in which languages and who signed them. Quality of Hindi prose is a different test. A beautiful Hindi chat does not bilingualise a licence.

We will translate everything into both languages to be safe.

Blind dual emission creates two files that drift. It also creates personal-data copies. Translate specified instruments from structured facts, and only those instruments. Chat can follow the citizen.

The Rules do not mention artificial intelligence, so they do not apply.

The Rules mention documents and communications, not typewriters. A new tool does not repeal them. It also does not expand them. Apply the live text to the output class.

Our State uses English only in practice.

Practice is not the statute. Read the State Act and the latest secretariat instruction. Then write the service-design languages you will actually test. Do not file a fiction either way.

Three weeks to a bilingual map that survives inspection

Sit the Rajbhasha officer and the DPO in the same room. They own different risks. The agent sits between them.

1. Week 1: list every output class the agent will touch. Mark which ones your counsel treats as specified bilingual instruments under the live Union or State text. Hedge. Write 'confirm against current circular' on the list.
2. Week 2: for instrument classes, design a dual draft from structured facts and a signer screen with a fact diff. For chat, write the service-language policy and the eval set.
3. Week 3: forbid undeclared translation hops. Put the official-language row and the transfer row next to each other in the standing order. Run one mock inspection on a real file number.

File note you can paste

Subject: Official-language treatment of agent outputs — interim map.

This department has reviewed the Official Languages Act, 1963, the Official Languages Rules, 1976 as published by the Department of Official Language, and the latest departmental Rajbhasha order dated [insert]. State law [insert or 'not applicable'] has been noted. Live text may move; this map will be re-checked before go-live.

Specified instruments will be drafted in the required languages from structured facts and signed by a competent officer. Chat and SMS will follow the attached service-language policy and are not treated as a substitute for those instruments. A model card is not a Rajbhasha return. This note is not legal advice.

What we will not certify

Prcept AI will not sell a Rajbhasha certificate. We will generate dual drafts from your store, keep the signer in the loop, and refuse to publish an instrument from a chat window. We will tell you when a State buyer has pasted a Union clause that does not bind them.

If a competitor offers 'full Official Languages Act compliance' as a toggle, ask them to show the signer, the dual draft, and the live list they used. Toggles are not statutes.

This article is informational field guidance for Indian public institutions, not legal, language-policy, procurement, finance or engineering advice. Confirm against the live Gazette, Official Languages Act and Rules, your State's official-language law, MeitY / IndiaAI notices, GFR, GeM terms, DPDP text, departmental manuals and your counsel before you file it.