QUETTA(National Times)- The Balochi Academy on Sunday expressed concern over proposed Balochistan Literary and Languages Bill, 2025, and described it as a threat to the autonomy of literary institutions.

At a meeting of the academy, the chairman of the academy, Haibtan Omar, urged the provincial government to withdraw the proposed legislation and strengthen financial support for literary and cultural organisations in the province.

Members of the academy attending the meeting called for introduction of a Balochi-language curriculum in government schools, appointment of qualified Balochi teachers and lecturers through the Public Service Commission, and additional funding from the federal and provincial governments for research and digital language projects.

The meeting reviewed the institution’s annual performance, financial affairs, publishing activities, and ongoing digitisation projects to preserve and promote the Balochi language.

Presenting the annual report, General Secretary of the academy Irfan Jamaldini said the academy had made significant progress on its Balochi encyclopedia project, with the first volume expected to be completed by the end of the year. He also announced that the academy had developed the first Balochi Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system, enabling printed images and PDF documents to be converted into editable text.

The initiative is expected to help preserve republication of rare Balochi books and manuscripts, he said.

Jamaldini said the Academy’s Natural Language Processing (NLP) project would help standardise the Balochi language and align it with modern technological developments.

He stressed that completing the NLP project, the encyclopedia, and educational and literary material for children remained among the academy’s top priorities.

Publication Secretary Zakir Qadir informed the meeting that the academy had published 11 books during the past year, including the Balochistaniyat Research Journal, while work on dozens of additional manuscripts was in progress.