Despite the immense potential, the translation industry in India, estimated at about $500 million, is wobbling and still remains unorganised, mainly due to shortage of quality resources and lack of professionalism.

FC spoke to a few industry players who attributed the status of industry, in addition to other factors, to lack of aggressive plan of action from government side.

The industry has maximum demand for foreign languages like German, French and Japanese as also Indian ones including Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, Kannada and Tamil. However, lack of skilled professionals is the biggest problem.

Sandeep Nulkar, chairman and managing director of Pune-based BITS, said, “We have turned down a lot of projects as we couldn’t find the right people for the assignments. Even 20 per cent of the industry demand is not being met.”

If the assignment is to work on content for a tractor company, Nulkar goes to the extent of organising a field trip for his translators to the manufacturing unit to get a hang of the domain knowledge before they commence work.

Ravikumar, president of Indian Translators Association, said, “The industry should receive special status and must get incentives to compete in the international market. The newly formed National Translation Mission has no vision about these points nor do they appear to be interested in taking up such issues.”

All India Translators Association (AITA) conducted a survey of status of translation education at university level and found that most universities have a name sake diploma in translation course, where the practical side of translation has miniscule importance.

Ravindranath, AITA president, said, “A translator is not merely a person knowing two languages. A translator is required to be trained in the art of creative writing, researching, general awareness and being updated with the latest developments in each field. The universities have failed to develop suitable courses to produce professional translators.”

Chinmayi Sripada, singer and CEO of Blue Elephant, blames lack of professionalism for the lack of growth in the industry. According to her, Indian translators should develop strong command over the English language, which is mostly the language that needs to be translated from or into and be thorough in the foreign language they learn.

“While working with some Indian natives we have had issues on quality and meeting deadlines. Sometimes, closer to deadlines the linguists go incommunicado. This is an issue I have never faced with my linguists abroad. The translation industry abroad is thriving because of professionalism,” she said.