The government is set to develop software to make Bangla friendlier for computing purposes.

The Tk 159.02 crore project, which will be funded with the government's own resources, will help create 16 software tools and organise training and workshops to build a strong workforce.

The software will translate all voice and text contents from English to Bangla and vice versa and convert text to voice for the visually-impaired people, said SM Ashraful Islam, executive director of Bangladesh Computer Council.

BCC will implement the project by June 2019. However, it will take five to six year to get well-equipped Bangla language computing tools, Islam said.

The project aims to standardise Bangla as an ICT-friendly language and develop tools, technology and content for Bangla computing, according to the planning ministry proposal.

The software tools, which will incorporate all the Bangla dialects, will also allow the visually impaired to read and write in the language.

The project received the approval from the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council yesterday.

“Bangla is the seventh most spoken language out of 7,000 languages in the world,” said Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal after an Ecnec meeting in Dhaka. So Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has taken an initiative to enrich the Bangla language further, he said.

Also at the meeting, a Tk 586 crore project was approved under which equipment will be purchased for construction, repair and maintenance of roads. Of the sum, Tk 472 crore will come in soft loans from India.

The committee also approved the first revised project under which 156 fire service and civil defence offices will be set up at important upazila sadars all over the country at a cost of Tk 1,258 crore.

The original cost of the project was Tk 889 crore when it was taken in 2012. The finance ministry in its proposal blamed the rise in the project cost on the price hike of various equipment, construction materials and land.

Referring to yesterday's Gulshan market fire, the prime minister directed the authorities to create water-bodies in the neighbourhood of high-rise buildings, the planning minister said.

Ecnec gave a go-ahead to a total of six projects of Tk 2,475 crore yesterday.