About
Propagation, promotion and development of the languages, literature, art and culture of the National Capital Territory of Delhi as an integral part of its composite culture, and implementation of the Delhi Official Languages Act, 2000.
The Department of Art, Culture and Languages of the Government of NCT of Delhi is the principal state government body responsible for cultural policy, funding and programming in the national capital. Carved out of the Education Department in 1999, it promotes and develops the languages, literature, art and culture of Delhi's composite society. It works through the Sahitya Kala Parishad (its performing and fine arts wing, established 1968), seven language academies covering Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Maithili-Bhojpuri and Garhwali-Kumaoni-Jaunsari, and a Sanskrit and oriental studies body, and it also administers the NCT's Departments of Archives and Archaeology.
The Department of Art, Culture and Languages came into being in 1999, carved out of the Delhi government's Education Department to take dedicated charge of the capital's cultural life. Its mandate is the propagation, promotion and development of the languages, literature, art and culture that make up the composite culture of the National Capital Territory, and it is also the department that implements the Delhi Official Languages Act, 2000.
The department works largely through the autonomous bodies it controls, coordinates and funds. The oldest is the Sahitya Kala Parishad, the government's wing for music, dance, drama and fine arts, established in 1968 and registered in 1975. The Parishad runs a full calendar of festivals, including the Thumri Festival, Bhakti Sangeet Utsav, Yuva Natya Samaroh, Hasya Rang Utsav and Bhartendu Natya Utsav, the Vama exhibition and a Senior Artists Camp, offers scholarships to sixty young artists, and conducts summer workshops across forty government schools. It also operates District Cultural Centres at Janakpuri and Vikaspuri.
Around the Parishad sits a network of seven language academies, each serving a language community of the capital. The Urdu Academy delivers the free annual Jashn-e-Urdu festival, publishes the journals Aiwan-e-Urdu and Umang, runs Urdu classes and provides monthly assistance to needy writers and poets. The Hindi Academy has run well over a hundred programmes in a single year, including Bal Utsav and Yamunotsav, and operates thirteen Hindi Prasar Kendras. The Punjabi Academy runs the Punjabi Heritage Festival, Gurbani Sangeet Samagam and Baisakhi Mela, appointed one hundred and twenty-two Punjabi teachers to Delhi and MCD schools in a single year, and operates forty-two composite libraries in slums and resettlement colonies. The Delhi Sanskrit Academy stages Sanskrit Utsav, Sanskrit Vasant Utsav and Sanskrit Sangeet Sandhya; the Sindhi Academy sustains Sindhi folk music, dance, literature and theatre; the Maithili-Bhojpuri Academy runs seminars, symposia and workshops; and the Garhwali-Kumaoni-Jaunsari Academy serves the capital's Uttarakhandi community with Igas Parv, Uttarakhand Foundation Day and the Sharad Mahotsav. A separate body, the Dr. Goswami Girdhari Lal Shastri Prachya Vidya Pratishthan, conducts Sanskrit and Indology examinations for gurukuls and has launched a doctoral programme in mass communication in Sanskrit.
Beyond performance and language, the department runs composite libraries and provides Grant-in-Aid to NGOs to open libraries in Delhi's assembly constituencies, offers financial assistance for poetry, literature and artistic events, and promotes the official and second official languages of Delhi. Much of its public programming, mushairas, qawwalis, Lok Utsav and folk-music evenings, is staged at the capital's heritage sites, from the Qutub Minar and Red Fort to Dilli Haat and Connaught Place.
Finally, two heritage departments fall under its administrative control. The Department of Archives surveys, acquires and preserves Delhi's documents, manuscripts, rare books and maps, and houses the government's permanent records. The Department of Archaeology conserves the lesser-known monuments of local importance that lie outside the remit of the Archaeological Survey of India, under the DAHMASR Act of 2004. Together these functions make the department the central institutional actor in the public cultural life of India's capital.
Visit & Access
Founding & Leadership
A department of the Government of NCT of Delhi headed by the Minister for Art, Culture and Language, which controls, coordinates and sanctions grant-in-aid to the autonomous bodies under it. The Sahitya Kala Parishad and language academies are autonomous societies with their own governing bodies of eminent artists, writers and government officers.
Initiatives & Portfolio
The performing and fine arts wing (music, dance, drama, visual arts), established 1968. Runs the Thumri Festival, Bhakti Sangeet Utsav, Yuva Natya Samaroh, Hasya Rang Utsav, Bhartendu Natya Utsav, the Vama exhibition and a Senior Artists Camp; offers scholarships to 60 young artists; runs summer workshops in 40 government schools; operates District Cultural Centres at Janakpuri and Vikaspuri.
Promotes Urdu through the free annual Jashn-e-Urdu festival, the journals Aiwan-e-Urdu (UGC-CARE) and Umang, Urdu classes for non-Urdu speakers, deployment of Urdu teachers to government schools, and monthly financial assistance to elderly and needy writers, poets and journalists.
Develops Hindi literature and culture, running well over a hundred programmes a year, including Bal Utsav and Yamunotsav, and operating 13 Hindi Prasar Kendras and Hindi shorthand and typing training centres.
Runs the Punjabi Heritage Festival, Gurbani Sangeet Samagam, Baisakhi Mela and Republic and Independence Day poets' meets; appointed 122 Punjabi teachers to Delhi and MCD schools in a single year; operates 42 composite libraries in slums and resettlement colonies; runs Punjabi learning, children's theatre and folk-dance workshops.
Promotes Sanskrit through Sanskrit Utsav, Sanskrit Vasant Utsav, Sanskrit Sangeet Sandhya and a Sanskrit Youth Festival, along with conferences, competitions, teacher workshops and practical-study centres.
Sustains Sindhi literary and cultural life across folk and traditional music, dance, seminars, symposia, short story, poetry, the novel, literary criticism and theatre.
Serves the Maithili and Bhojpuri communities through seminars, lectures, symposia, discussions, readings and workshops. Established 2008.
Serves the capital's Uttarakhandi community, celebrating Igas Parv (Budhi Deepawali) and Uttarakhand Foundation Day, running folk and mask-dance workshops in Delhi schools, and preparing the Sharad Mahotsav and Uttaraini-Makaraini celebrations.
Conducts Sanskrit and Indology examinations and certification for gurukul (middle-level) education, and has launched a doctoral programme in mass communication in Sanskrit literature.
Runs composite libraries, provides Grant-in-Aid to NGOs to open libraries in Delhi's assembly constituencies (including the Lal Bahadur Shastri Sewa Niketan library), and offers financial assistance for poetry, literature and artistic events. Implements the Delhi Official Languages Act, 2000.
Surveys, acquires and preserves Delhi's documents, manuscripts, rare books and maps, and houses the permanent records of the Government of NCT of Delhi for administrative use and historical research.
Conserves and protects the lesser-known monuments of local importance in Delhi that fall outside the remit of the Archaeological Survey of India, under the DAHMASR Act, 2004.
The Delhi government's cultural apparatus, administered through this department, is one of the most significant public arts and language systems in India, a reflection of Delhi's position as both the national capital and one of the country's most linguistically diverse cities. Few state cultural bodies carry a mandate this broad: performing and fine arts through the Sahitya Kala Parishad, seven language communities through dedicated academies, Sanskrit and oriental scholarship, public libraries, and custodianship of the city's archives and archaeology.
Its most distinctive asset is the language-academy network. By maintaining academies for Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Sanskrit, Maithili-Bhojpuri and the Garhwali-Kumaoni-Jaunsari languages of the Uttarakhand community, alongside Hindi, the department sustains minority and heritage-language cultures that often lack institutional support, backed by concrete infrastructure such as the Punjabi Academy's forty-two libraries in underserved colonies and its appointment of scores of language teachers. Its free public festivals, most visibly Jashn-e-Urdu, carry those cultures to a wide audience without a price barrier, and its habit of programming at Delhi's heritage monuments binds the capital's living culture to its built history. For the Atlas, the department is the state anchor for cultural activity in Delhi and the natural hub connecting the city's festivals, language communities and heritage venues.
[Atlas Perspective] The Department of Art, Culture and Languages is the principal cultural body of the Government of NCT of Delhi, and unlike the corporate and CSR funders profiled elsewhere in the Atlas, culture is its core purpose rather than a strand of a wider mission. It controls, coordinates and funds the Sahitya Kala Parishad (performing and fine arts, since 1968), seven language academies (Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Maithili-Bhojpuri and Garhwali-Kumaoni-Jaunsari), a Sanskrit and oriental studies body, public libraries, and the NCT's Archives and Archaeology departments, and it implements the Delhi Official Languages Act, 2000.
The Atlas assessment is that a body of this breadth and centrality is the natural state anchor for any mapping of culture in the capital. Its output is real and substantial: dozens of named festivals across the academies, from the Thumri Festival and Bhartendu Natya Utsav to Jashn-e-Urdu, the Punjabi Heritage Festival and Sanskrit Utsav, backed by concrete infrastructure such as forty-two Punjabi composite libraries in underserved colonies and the appointment of scores of language teachers. Its language-academy model is a genuinely valuable instrument for sustaining minority and heritage languages, a field of live national interest as India turns attention to its dialect and language heritage, and its practice of free programming at heritage venues is a model of public cultural access.
The honest counterweight is transparency and documentation. Grant figures, budgets and academy outcomes are not consistently published in a single place, and the department's digital presence understates the scale of what it does. These are gaps in the public record rather than in the work itself, and they are exactly what a state cultural department is well-positioned to formalise. Doing so would let the department stand, alongside comparable state cultural bodies such as Rajasthan's, as a documented model of how a government sustains a diverse cultural and linguistic ecosystem.