The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has launched Saarthi, a reference application designed to assist businesses in creating their own customised buyer-side apps. Developed together with Bhashini — an AI-driven language translation tool, Saarthi provides a comprehensive framework to Network Participants that enables seamless integration with ONDC, offering advanced multilingual capabilities for a more inclusive digital commerce experience.
As a reference tool, Saarthi supports Network Participants in building buyer apps with multilingual features. The application initially supports 5 languages - Hindi, English, Marathi, Bangla and Tamil, with plans to scale up to all 22 languages provided by Bhashini. This ensures that businesses can offer a personalized and localized shopping experience, breaking down language barriers and enhancing accessibility for users across India.
The multilingual features of Saarthi, including real-time translation, transliteration, and voice recognition that allow businesses to expand market reach, enabling companies to tap into new regions and increase customer acquisition. Personalized user experiences enhance customer engagement and loyalty, while the application’s competitive features provide a unique value proposition. The intuitive, localized experience can also lead to higher conversion rates and reduced support costs, streamlining operations and boosting revenue. Overall, these features are particularly beneficial for reaching underserved regions and communities where language barriers have historically hindered e-commerce adoption.
Moreover, the Saarthi application is designed with scalability and ease of integration in mind. Continuous updates ensure that businesses benefit from the latest features and security enhancements without additional development effort, and the solution’s reliability is supported by extensive testing and expertise.
T Koshy, MD & CEO at ONDC, commented, “The launch of Saarthi is a pivotal development in our journey towards a more inclusive digital commerce landscape. By providing a reference application that enables businesses to create multilingual buyer apps, we are breaking down language barriers and opening up new avenues for engagement and growth. This initiative aligns with our commitment to democratize access to e-commerce, ensuring that businesses of all sizes can connect with customers across India’s diverse linguistic spectrum.”
Amitabh Nag, CEO at Bhashini, added, “Collaborating with ONDC on Saarthi underscores Bhashini’s dedication to overcoming language barriers in digital commerce. At Bhashini, our aim is to make multilingual voice communication a universal medium, breaking language barriers across various domains beyond text and images. Our advanced language technology is designed to empower businesses to build applications that reflect the rich linguistic diversity of India. Through this collaboration, we are not only enhancing e-commerce accessibility but also setting a new standard for inclusivity in the digital marketplace.”
In a related initiative, the Bhashini Sprint—a recent hackathon focused on advancing language technology and digital inclusion—has further contributed to the dialogue on improving digital commerce. It has brought together innovators to explore solutions that address linguistic challenges, complementing the goals of Saarthi and supporting broader efforts to enhance digital accessibility.
BHASHINI aims to transcend language barriers, ensuring that every citizen can effortlessly access digital services in their own language. Using Voice as a medium, BHASHINI has the potential to bridge language as well as the digital divide. Launched by Honourable PM Shri Narendra Modi in July 2022 under the National Language Technology Mission, BHASHINI aims to provide technology translation services in 22 scheduled Indian languages.
BHASHINI provides a full array of services to overcome language barriers and improve accessibility. It contains an easy-to-use web service portal, a mobile app in beta version, a dataset repository, a specialised services for Speech to Speech, Text to Text, Speech to Text, OCR, and Transliterations, a crowd-sourcing platform known as Bhasha Daan, which invites active data contributions for AI model training. This diverse strategy promotes inclusion, supports different languages, and encourages creativity in products and services.