An increasing number of students are opting for the Russian language course at Delhi University every year.

The Department of Slavonic and Fino Ugrarian Studies. offers five other language courses in Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovakian, Hungarian and Polish, at certificate , diploma and advanced diploma levels. Postgraduate degree is only for Russian language.

“Russian language has a lot of scope in the job market. Every year we witness 10 to 20 per cent increase. There is a demand for other offered languages too. But the job scene is still based on short term projects. Thus there are less number of students,” said Preeti Muradia, an official.

The department has 467 students enrolled in various language courses. “Two hundred students are learning part-time Russian language and 60 students are for
 full- time. After Russian, the next preferred languages are Polish and Bulgarian with around 35 and 20 students respectively. All the students are Indians,” she said.

Apart from teaching, Muradia said that a lot of students join the Indian Navy as translators. “Every year students join Indian Navy as translators. Many multinational companies  have  also started hiring translators and interpreters with a salary of Rs 35,000 - Rs 40,000. Students join MNCs  after a one-year intensive course in Russian language,” she said.

 “One of the companies which hire a lot of Russian language translators and interpreters is Wipro,” the official said.

Students said the demand for Russian language translators and interpreters is high in knowledge process outsourcing and business process outsourcing (BPOs).

“The job scope of this language is broad. There are positions in the Cabinet secretariat for Russian translators and interpreters, the medical tourism is an upcoming field. Russian is spoken in almost 12 countries. Russian speaking tourists come in huge numbers to India specially during summers. A tourist or delegate interpreter gets around Rs 1,500 - Rs 2,000 per day,” said Zia Khan, postgraduate student of the department.

He added that other languages offered by the department also have a lot of scope, however, there are no takers due to lack of knowledge about the courses.