Union govt. push for use of Hindi

Source: The post is based on the article “Union govt. push for use of Hindi” published in The Hindu on 15^th September 2022.

What is the News?

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has written to the Ministry of External Affairs to promote the use of Hindi for official work in banks, public sector undertakings, embassies and other government offices located in foreign countries.

Further, the MHA asked the Ministry of External Affairs to provide a list of all the government institutions in foreign countries and constitute an Official Language Implementation Committee that would oversee the progress of Hindi in official work.

What are the recent steps taken by the government to promote Hindi?

The 2011 report of a parliamentary standing committee on Hindi recommended the following to promote the Hindi language, a) Option to write exams in Hindi, b) Minimum knowledge of Hindi must for government jobs, c) 50% of government advertisements in Hindi, d) Railway tickets should be bilingual with Hindi being one of the languages and announcement at railway stations in “C” category (non-Hindi speaking states) such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Kerala.

In 2017, the MHA accepted most of the recommendations. Along with that, the MHA also said that a) The websites of all the Union Ministries and the offices under their control should be bilingual and b) The Hindi pages should also be compulsorily uploaded while updating the website.

What are the outcomes of the government decision to promote Hindi?

Accordingly, 1) Most government websites are bilingual now – Hindi and English, 2) The websites of organisations such as the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Border Security Force (BSF) and even the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) open in Hindi by default, 3) In the past two years, most press releases by the Union Ministries were released first in Hindi, and 4) More than 80% staff in at least seven offices of MHA including the Directorate of Census Operations in West Bengal and the Delhi Police’s Commissioner office had attained the working knowledge of Hindi.