Mumbai: With an eye on the upcoming local and civic body elections and in a bid to keep the ‘Marathi Manoos’ in good humour, the Maharashtra legislature on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that aims to make the use of Marathi mandatory for the official work of local authorities, including civic bodies and corporations formed by the state government. State minister Subhash Desai said the introduction of the bill was necessitated as the Maharashtra Official Language Act, 1964, had not done so.
Desai cited examples of authorities taking advantage of the lack of the provision in the Act. “It is our effort to do away with that mistake,” he said.
“Any local authority, be it established by the state government or the Central government or state-run corporations, will have to use Marathi while interacting with people and for office work too. All communication and correspondence made with the public in the state by the office of the local authority, noting, drafting, all remarks, comments and opinion, manuals, administrative proceedings, bylaws, notices, any administrative work and business, schemes, programmes and policies will be in Marathi,” said Desai. The minister, however, added that the use of English or Hindi by local authorities for certain government work like communicating with foreign ambassadors has been allowed.
Desai also said that English could be used for communication addressed to the Central and state government offices and the accountant general.
“We are not leaving loopholes for anyone to find an excuse to not use Marathi language in public and commercial places. The state government is also coming up with a dictionary of simple Marathi words that can be used in day-to-day work,” said Desai.
According to the bill, every office of the local authority shall designate a suitable officer as ‘Marathi Language Officer’, to discharge this function, including the redressal of grievances pertaining to the non-use of Marathi for official purposes and to take steps to ensure the effective implementation of the provisions.
Moreover, there will be district and state Marathi language committees and also a disciplinary authority. The disciplinary authority can initiate disciplinary action against the employee of the concerned local authority.
Earlier, BJP legislator Yogesh Sagar, while speaking on the bill in the assembly, wondered why the love for Marathi surfaced each time elections were in the offing. He was apparently referring to the local body polls, including the one to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which are due. However, Sagar backed the bill and said all files must be in Marathi only.
