Do You Need 22 Languages, or Just Four?

A Central PSU's RFP said the agent 'must support all 22 official languages of India'. The evaluation sheet had no test set. Two vendors wrote yes. One vendor asked which 22, which scripts, which code-mix, and whether English — which is not in the Eighth Schedule — counted. The committee was annoyed. The annoyed vendor was the only one who had read the Constitution and the Official Languages Act, 1963.

This is an opinion in the Indic and citizen-services cluster, written so PSU and departmental buyers stop copying a slogan into eligibility. The opinion: you almost never need to mandate twenty-two scheduled languages in the first agent. You do need the working languages of the offices and citizens this purpose actually touches, with an evaluation set you will mark. For a Central secretariat purpose that is often Hindi and English. For a plant in Odisha that is often English, Hindi and Odia. 'Four' is a useful planning heuristic — Hindi, English, plus the one or two state languages the estate uses — not a number the law prints.

The Eighth Schedule lists scheduled languages. It is not a command that every Union software system must infer in each of them on day one. The Official Languages Act, 1963 keeps English alongside Hindi for Union official purposes. Hindi in the Act means Hindi in Devanagari. State official-language Acts and rules are different instruments. A Tamil Nadu office and a Uttar Pradesh office do not share a duty because a vendor slide said 22.

Not legal advice and not a language-policy ruling. Read the Act, the Official Languages Rules, your state's Act, and the companion tender note on specifying Indic coverage precisely. This piece is about the mandate you should refuse to write without a test.

Three instruments people collapse into the number 22

The Eighth Schedule is a constitutional list of scheduled languages. It is used for many policy purposes. It is not, by itself, an IT acceptance test. Counting the entries (currently twenty-two) and pasting the count into an RFP is cargo-cult federalism.

The Official Languages Act, 1963, and the rules under it, govern official purposes of the Union — Hindi and the continued use of English, with duties about bilingual official documents in specified cases. A Central PSU's corporate file-noting agent is in this conversation. A shop-floor SOP in a state language may not be. Do not use the Act to demand Punjabi and Kannada in a Delhi secretariat copilot unless that secretariat actually serves those languages in that workflow.

State official-language Acts and rules impose different pairs and different scripts. A state discom, a state road corporation, and a Central mine sitting in that state can owe different language duties to citizens and to their own files. Map the body you are, not the body on the vendor's last slide.

Cite the instrument. The number 22 is not an instrument.

Instrument	What it actually does	What a lazy RFP pretends
Eighth Schedule	Lists scheduled languages	That every agent must serve all of them, equally, now
Official Languages Act, 1963	Union official purposes: Hindi (Devanagari) and English	That Central bodies must ship 22 UIs
State official-language laws	That state's official language(s) and rules	That a Central PSU plant can ignore them, or must copy all states
'Four working languages'	A planning heuristic, not a Gazette	That a statute requires exactly four

Four is a heuristic — here is how to use it

When we say four in planning conversations, we mean: start with Hindi and English if you are a Central body, then add the official language of the state where the users sit, then add the language the users actually type in the tickets — which may be a code-mix, or a scheduled language that is not the state's official language, or English in Latin script with local nouns. That often lands at three or four named varieties, not twenty-two.

A national citizen grievance bot is the case that tempts the number 22. Even then, do not put 22 in eligibility on day one. Put a wave: the languages of the states you will go live in this year, each with a test set of real tickets, including code-mix. Publish the next wave. A vendor who can show four languages with honest scores is more useful than a vendor who claims twenty-two with a translate API and no eval.

English is not an Eighth Schedule language. If your users work in English, write English in the tender. People forget, then fail the only language the officers actually typed.

Scripts, code-mix, and the eval you will actually mark

Hindi in Devanagari is not the same as Hindi typed in Latin. Bangla and Assamese share a script family and are not interchangeable. Konkani has more than one script practice. If you do not name script, the vendor will pick the demo font.

PSU tickets are code-mix: English nouns, Hindi verbs, a state-language place name, a SAP transaction code. A model that only handles newspaper Hindi will fail the desk. Your eval set should be fifty real, redacted tickets per named variety, plus a translation-pair set if you ask for bilingual official drafts under the Official Languages Act.

The companion tender article in the RFP cluster tells you how to write this as a markable annexure. This opinion tells you not to skip that annexure in favour of the numeral 22.

Citizens versus the file

A citizen-facing purpose can create a duty to speak the citizen's language even when the file is bilingual Hindi-English. That duty, if it exists, comes from your citizen-charter, a state rule, or a scheme guideline — not from a vendor's Eighth Schedule slide. Write the charter citation. Then wave the languages of the districts you will serve.

A file-noting purpose inside a Central PSU usually needs good Hindi and English drafts, with the official-language officer in the loop for what must be bilingual. Adding ten more languages to that copilot is theatre. It will dilute the two you are legally and practically judged on.

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.

Not listing 22 is anti-federal and anti-constitutional.

Listing 22 without a test is anti-citizen. It funds a lie. A wave with honest scores in the languages you serve is how you get to more languages without humiliating the ones you already owe.

The Official Languages Act requires Hindi everywhere, so add everything else too.

The Act is about Union official purposes and the Hindi-English pair, not about an unbounded Indic cafeteria. Read it. Do not use it as a trampoline to 22.

A translate API is good enough for the long tail.

Say that, and keep those languages out of eligibility. Mark them as best-effort with a visible caveat to the officer. Silent translation of a safety SOP is not a long tail. It is a hazard.

Our political leadership announced 22.

Leadership can announce a programme. You still need waves and tests. Put the announcement in the cover note and the tests in the annexure. Do not put the announcement in the eligibility sheet.

A four-week language-honesty playbook

Do this before the RFP leaves the building.

1. Week 1: name the body (Central, state, CPSE plant) and the purpose (file versus citizen). Read the Official Languages Act or the state Act that actually applies. Write two sentences.
2. Week 2: list the working varieties of the first-wave users, with scripts and code-mix notes. Expect three or four, not twenty-two. Include English if officers type it.
3. Week 3: build or borrow fifty redacted samples per named variety. That is the eval. No eval, no claim.
4. Week 4: write the tender annexure. Eligibility is the first-wave list. A scored preference may exist for extra languages with their own samples. Delete the numeral 22 from eligibility.

How this shows up in the file

Subject: Language scope for the agent — working varieties with eval, not '22 official languages'.

This organisation will not mandate coverage of all Eighth Schedule languages without a test set. First-wave varieties are (list, with scripts). Hindi and English are included where the Official Languages Act, 1963 applies to the purpose. State official-language duties are (citation) where they apply. Extra languages may be scored if samples exist. Safety and statutory text will not rely on an untested translate layer.

This note is not a language-policy ruling and not legal advice.

This article is informational field guidance for Indian public sector undertakings and their vendors, not legal, audit, labour, energy-regulatory, banking-regulatory or procurement advice. Confirm the live circular, DPE guideline, CVC instruction, sector regulator text, purchase manual and your counsel before you file it.