Union govt accepts Marathi First in central establishments

The Union government has conceded Maharashtra’s demand for maximum use of Marathi in central government establishments in the state. Minister of state in the Union home ministry Ajay Maken issued a letter to this effect to chief minister Ashok Chavan.

The establishments include banks and the railways, which will have to treat Marathi as the first language in communiqué, forms, signboards and notice boards. The Union home department, which looks into official languages, has issued directions to this effect.

The department was responding to a resolution passed by the state legislature during its budget session in March. Maken’s letter says that all central government establishments have been directed to give first preference to the local language (Marathi) as per the three-language formula.

Chavan, in a letter to Union home minister P Chidambaram in the first week of June, brought to the Centre’s notice that its instructions were not being followed in the central agencies in the state.

The Centre issued instructions to its departments on March 25, 1968, that money orders and application forms be printed in the local language in all states other than Hindi-speaking ones. Another order issued on June 15, 1977, directed central establishments to have notice boards and signboards in the local language.

The Maharashtra government brought these rules and their violation to the notice of the Centre. When the issue came up for discussion during the budget session in March, both Houses passed a resolution that use of the local language should be ensured in central establishments.

Anant Kalse, principal secretary, state legislature, wrote to the Union home department three months ago apprising it of the resolution.

The committee appointed to prepare the state’s cultural policy draft, which was released in January, had suggested that apart from asking central establishments to use Marathi, the state should ask the Centre to make compulsory the appointment of a Marathi-speaking official to take care of correspondence and monitor recruitment.