Himachal Pradesh Chief minister Virbhadra Singh on Monday announced that Sanskrit will be introduced as a mandatory subject in all government schools in the state.

Presiding over a meeting at Himachal Sanskrit Academy, the Chief Minister urged the academy officials to make earnest efforts to promote Sanskrit.

While assuring that there will be no dearth of funds, Singh asked the officials to prepare programmes and projects and submit the same to the Central government.

The minister praised the ancient language and said that it was a perfect form of the Vedic language, that existed thousands of years ago, even before the earliest prime languages of the world like Greek, Hebrew and Latin etc, came into the picture.

He directed the Academy to complete the formalities for take over of Tungesh Sanskrit College at Cheog village, to ensure its better functioning. Singh also ordered to transfer the ownership of 'Divya Jyoti' monthly magazine to the academy and approved publication of research journal (bi-annual) of the academy jointly with Himachal Pradesh University.