New Delhi, March 30 (IANS) In a fillip to Prime Minister's Digital India initiative, domestic smartphone maker Lava International Ltd on Tuesday launched KKT Ultra+ Union -- the first feature phone that supports 22 official Indian languages -- for Indian customers.

Priced at Rs.1,500, the phone is designed to minimise the communication gap that arises due to language barriers, hence, bridging the digital divide between the urban and rural population.

"We at LAVA are delighted to introduce KKT Ultra + Union, a device which is in line with our company's mission to empower people to do more and be more by making valuable technologies accessible," Lava's product head Gaurav Nigam, said in a statement.

"Through this phone we want to bridge the language barrier and enable people to express themselves in their own language with their near and dear ones across the country. The launch of KKT Ultra + Union is another step towards strengthening our support to thegovernment's Make in India and Digital India initiative," he added.

Nigam said about 70 percent of phones that the company will make will have support of at least six languages, adding it has installed a manufacturing unit in Noida that can manufacture 10 lakh phones in a month.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman Ram Sevak Sharma, who was the chief guest at the launch, lauded LAVA for launching a budget phone to support the "Digital India" and "Make in India" initiatives.

He said that for transparent and effective governance, technology has to be robust and mobile phones play an important role in communication.

"Technology is not a constraint, communication is. In today's digital world, people in rural and remote areas are missing too many things due to non-availability of better communication technology.

"For better connectivity, one needs to communicate in local language and I am happy that LAVA has launched a budget phone for better communication," he added.

Apart from English and Hindi, the phone supports Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Manipuri, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

The device offers a screen of 2.4 inch and comes with an in-built dual-SIM slot, with GSM operating frequency. It offers 1,750 mAh Li-ionbattery with talk time of 18 hours along with a VGA camera.

KKT Ultra + Union is equipped with a hassle-free wireless FM support along with an audio/video playback option enabled through a 3.5 mm audio jack.

The phone will be available in black and grey colour variants across all national retail stores and multi-brand outlets.