Railway tickets will now be printed in Kannada, in addition to Hindi and English. Kannada activists have been demanding this for some time now, and this move by the South Western Railway officials has brought cheer to them.
However, only tickets printed at station counters will be available in Kannada, while tickets booked online are yet to be made available in the language. Unreserved tickets with information in Kannada will be available in computerized passenger reservation counters in Bengaluru, reported Times of India.
The Indian Railways’ passenger amenities committee had approved a proposal to print tickets in the local language, in addition to English and Hindi from January 1, 2018.
Karnataka is not alone in demanding the inclusion of local languages, as states like Tamil Nadu have also demanded that tickets and official forms be available in the local language and have pushed for a two-language policy of English and the local language instead of Hindi.
Pro-Kannada activists took to Twitter to welcome the move. #ServeInMyLanguage was trending on the social media platform.
Impact of our fight against #HindiImposition. We have been demanding for services in #Kannada both in the Government and Private Sectors. We have run multiple campaigns demanding various companies and Govt Bodies to #ServeInMyLanguage .
— Amarnath S (@Amara_Bengaluru) March 1, 2018
Good move @RailMinIndia pic.twitter.com/R2vd55rMru
In July last year, members of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike had defaced Hindi signs in metro stations across Bengaluru. Activists of the Vedike had demanded that the three-language policy be removed and that the state government implement a two-language policy of Kannada and English only.
Subsequently, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had written to the Centre, asking it to order the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) to take down the sign boards in Hindi.
However, members of the Vedike are still upset that despite the promise, BMRCL still has not taken down the Hindi signboards.