Bengaluru: BMRCL finally buckled under pressure from pro-Kannada activists and the state government and has removed Hindi signboards from some of the Metro stations in the city.
Signboards at South entrance of Kempegowda Metro Station, Chickpete, K.R. Market and Jayanagar were removed. BMRCL officials did not respond to our calls. It all began with campaigns in the social media under the hashtag #Namma Metro Hindi Beda, which was followed by blackening of the Hindi signboards by members of Karnataka Rakshana Vedike.
Soon after the Kannada Development Authority also met BMRCL officials and raised the same demand. Recently Chief Minister Siddarmaiah too wrote to Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Tomar in this regard.
"The State Government is compelled to ask BMRCL to redesign their signanges in Metro station, without using Hindi. It would be much better to follow a persuasive approach than a mandatory one," the chief minister had said in his letter.
With this move, the BMRCL has violated the notification from Union Ministry of Urban Development, dated December 2016, which had stated, "As per the official Language policy of Union Government, it is necessary that at all metro stations located in non-Hindi speaking regions, the signboards, name boards, announcements and publication material, etc for public information shall be in three languages – regional language, Hindi and English."
