Maharashtra govt issues notification to central departments, tells them to use Marathi along with English and Hindi

The Maharashtra government on Wednesday issued a five-page notification to all the central government departments, reminding them that Marathi is a part of the state’s Tri-language policy and that its use, apart from English and Hindi, is mandatory for services to public and all communication. According to the circular, only the state government offices were following the policy while the central government offices in the state were not using Marathi ’effectively’ along with English and Hindi. The circular says, “Marathi” is the official language of State of Maharashtra under the Maharashtra Official languages Act, 1964 and Amendment Act, 2015 and its jurisdiction is whole of the state. So, as per Tri- language formula of the Central Government, it has been mandatory to use Regional language, i.e. Marathi language along with English and Hindi in all offices and Establishments of the Central Government in the state of Maharashtra and other offices of the Central Government which provides banking, telephone, post, insurance, railway, metro, mono-rail, airline, gas, petroleum, taxation, etc. services to the people in the State of Maharashtra. In this context, the resolutions had passed in both of the Houses of the Parliament of India. In order to implement this Tri- language Policy, Department of Official language, Central Government, had given the instructions for the use of regional languages of the respective state, vide its above-referred office orders, dated 18.06.1977 and 01.07.2010."    This news comes days after Maharashtra Navnirma Sena chief Raj Thackrey had asked banks to ensure that all the transactions are done in Marathi. He criticised banks for ignoring the Marathi despite RBI guidelines on using the local language, reported Hindustan Times. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been ensuring that the Tri-language policy is used in other sectors too. In June it was reported that Maharashtra government would implement recommendations of the Marathi language policy to use the state language other sectors such as science, education and trade. Education Minister Vinod Tawde was quoted by PTI as saying, “The first draft recommendations are received. It will be reviewed with Marathi language department followed by Cabinet approval. Once it clears all the necessary stages, it will be implemented soon.”