Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said all public and private organisations in Telangana state must have signboards in Telugu. If they want, they can use another language as well.
He was speaking at a meeting to discuss plans for the five day World Telugu Conference that will be held in Hyderabad from December 15 to 19, 2017, and for which the government has sanctioned Rs 50 crore.
In addition, Rs 5 crore will be given to the Sahitya Academy which is the nodal organisation for the conference, and Rs 2 crore will go to the Official Language Committee. To safeguard the Telugu language, the Chief Minister announced that from the next academic year all educational institutions must teach Telugu from Class 1 to 12. Students can take Urdu as an optional subject.
The Sahitya Academy has been told to prepare a syllabus for Telugu as a subject to be taught in primary, medium, higher and intermediate classes and to print the required text books.
Mr Rao made it clear that no school will be allowed to function in the state if it does not teach Telugu.
Some schools in the city were offering special English instead of teaching Telugu.
