HYDERABAD: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) council meetings are going to be hi-tech. The civic body has decided to spend `3.80 crore for providing a new audio-conferencing and simultaneous interpretation system for the GHMC Council Meeting Hall akin to the one in place in the Telangana Legislative Assembly.
The decision to fix new audio-conferencing and simultaneous interpretation system in the council meeting hall was taken following disturbances felt in the audio output at the council meeting held on December 18, which annoyed Mayor Gadwal Vijayalaxmi no end. With the existing audio system malfunctioning during the council meeting, many corporators had sought a better system. The GHMC officials decided to have a system similar to the one in the Assembly and held talks with the officials about how it works and the advantages it offers.
The simultaneous interpretation system is a method of interpreting what is said in one language into another language in real-time. The interpreter listens to a source language either naturally or via headphones and then translates the message in their allocated language into a microphone.
Multiple interpreters can translate into multiple languages within the same hall. The corporators use headphones to hear the interpretation. The interpretation can be sent to the corporators either by a wired system, where the corporator connects headphones to an installed socket or by wireless where they must use a receiving device.
In GHMC, many corporators who are fluent in Telugu but are not able to understand Urdu which is mostly spoken by the MIM corporators during the council meetings. Similarly, many MIM corporators who speak Urdu are finding it difficult to comprehend Telugu spoken by TRS and BJP corporators.
The GHMC officials told Express that originally the audio system was installed in the Council Meeting Hall during its inception in 2002 with 89 microphones with an audio system of Ahuja make. Further, during the expansion of the Council Hall in 2009 additional 27 microphones were added to the existing audio system.
Presently the audio conference system is having a lot of electrical interference and looping noises. Also, the technology used in the existing audio system of the Council Hall is very old and outdated. Also in 2014, the Simultaneous Interpretation System (equipped with two interpretation units and four signal radiators) of Bosch make was installed.
Language won’t be a barrier anymore
The interpretation can be sent to the corporators either by a wired system, where the corporator connects headphones to an installed socket or by wireless where they must use a receiving device. There are many corporators who are fluent in Telugu but are not able to understand Urdu which is mostly spoken by the MIM corporators during the council meetings regarding the civic issues in the city.