Chennai: Distribution of medicine covers carrying instructions in Tamil, English and Hindi at government medical college hospitals in Karur and Coimbatore has triggered a political controversy in Tamil Nadu. Since Tuesday late evening, the opposition DMK and the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) traded charges against each other over the State’s time-tested two-language policy of Tamil and English and its age-old opposition to imposition of Hindi.
The issue came to the fore on Tuesday when DMK leader and former Industries Minister T.R.B. Rajaa posted photographs of brown medicine covers on X, questioning the use of Hindi in government hospitals. He alleged that the three-language policy was being implemented in Tamil Nadu hospitals and said similar covers had been used first in Karur and subsequently in Coimbatore.
The covers carried instructions on the timing and manner of consuming medicines in Tamil, English and Hindi.
The Karur government hospital authorities, however, said the covers had not been newly designed or introduced by the present administration. Government Medical College, Karur, Dean M. Bharathi Mohan said the order for the covers had been placed on December 24, 2025 (during the erstwhile DMK regime), and that they had been taken into use only recently. Following the controversy, he instructed staff to stop issuing medicines in the covers containing Hindi.
At Coimbatore Medical College Hospital too, the administration replaced the brown covers on Tuesday evening. A senior official said the covers had been printed and supplied by the Chinthamani Cooperative Society and had been in use for a considerable period. Pharmacists were instructed to use new covers carrying only Tamil and English.
On Wednesday, Health Minister K.G. Aruraj hit back at the DMK, accusing it of indulging in “cheap politics” over the issue. He said the Karur covers had been procured after a shortage of the usual covers supplied by the Central Prison and claimed that an emergency order for four lakh covers was placed on December 31, 2025, during the previous DMK regime. According to him, the covers entered circulation in January 2026.
The Minister also said that the use of similar covers in Coimbatore had been approved through administrative procedures three years ago, during the DMK regime, and that they too had been printed and brought into use then.
Mr. Aruraj said the present administration had merely used covers available in stock and had not altered their design or language. He added that the covers were immediately withdrawn at both hospitals after the issue came to the government’s notice.
The Minister said Karur would revert to covers sourced from the Central Prison with details stamped in Tamil, while Coimbatore would use new covers carrying only Tamil and English.
