Mumbai : Out of 7,843 new auto permits awarded by the state government in the past 11 months, majority have gone to people who are not Marathi speakers by birth, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has said.
“After the new government assumed power, 7,843 new permits have been granted to autorickshaw and taxi drivers, of which only 2,540 permits have been awarded to Marathi candidates, while 5,303 auto-permits have been granted to non Marathi speaking persons,” Fadnavis said on Monday.
It may be recalled that last week Transport minister Diwakar Raote had said at a press conference that the government is in process of developing criteria for allotment of new permits. “All [criteria] are not yet finalised. But, one thing has been agreed upon and that is the person applying for permits should be able to speak Marathi,” Raote had said when asked whether the government is thinking upon developing criteria for allotting permits.
“The act has the provision regarding ‘working knowledge of local language’ ever since its inception. There is nothing new in it. I don’t understand why the issue was racked up as the government is going to grant auto permits only to Marathi people,” Fadnavis said. The fact is that the majority of applications come from non-Maharashtrians, he added.
When asked, what might be the reason that the issue was the chief minister said that it appears to have been blown up keeping in view the elections in Bihar.
When asked whether he sees a deliberate attempt by Shiv Sena in racking up the issue, the chief minister defended his cabinet colleague Diwakar Raote and said, “Being a Shiv Sena leader, Raote is generally very particular about issues related to Marathi. He must have spoken up in his usual manner over some questions in this regard.”
Abhijit Mulye
