The Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) is an apex institute dealing with the promotion of Indian Languages under the Ministry of Education, Government of India. It advises and assists the central government, state government and various government agencies on language policies and related matters. This Institute is often called upon to help fulfil a variety of evaluation requirements of the country involving a number of languages, levels of education, and a range of purposes.

Under the scheme of Fellowships and Scholarships, CIIL is encouraging language-related promotional activities by awarding Five (05) Scholarships, Five (05) Junior Fellowships and (02) Senior Fellowships every year. The scheme is operated as per the revised guidelines of Ministry of Education as being implemented by the University Grants Commission (UGC), Council of Science and Industrial Research (CSIR), National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). The awardees are expected to work on the themes related to the vision statement of this institute. In other words, the recipients of the fellowships are expected to engage in research that yields valuable data or new insights in the field of Linguistics and its allied disciplines preferably related to the languages of India.