Hindi as official language yet to make headway in NE

GUWAHATI, August 11: Despite the fact that Hindi is becoming more and more popular among the people of the region, thanks largely to television and cinema, its progress as the primary language for carrying out official works in Central Government offices, public sector undertakings (PSUs) and nationalised banks is far from satisfactory. Targets set for such establishments in the region in promoting the official language of the country are left untouched in most of them. Lack of interest and enough effort on the part of the officials entrusted with the task of implementing the official language programme is said to be the primary reason behind the poor show. The Official Language Resolution passed by the Parliament in 1967 directed the Centre to prepare and implement intensive and comprehensive programmes to speed up propagation of Hindi and is progressive use for official purposes. The goal is to replace English with Hindi for official purposes of the Union as envisaged in Article 343 of the constitution. "Hindi is popular among the general public in the Northeast but targets set for offices with regard to its implementation as the official language has not been achieved," says deputy director (implementation), Department of Official Language, Ministry of Home Affairs, RB Singh. The deputy director, based in Guwahati, is in charge of overseeing the implementation of Hindi in offices all over the Northeast, including Sikkim. Pointing out the reasons behind the poor show, Singh says the most crucial reason is the tenure basis on which implementing officers in concerned offices are posted. "It is a major problem", he feels and adds that it is because of the short tenures of the officers that they do not show interest in the implementation of Hindi. "It is hindering the proper implementation of the official language," he says. The deputy director also points out at another factor inhibiting the implementation of Hindi. This is the non-filling of posts specifically related to Hindi. "The minimum requirements of officers and staff are not being met," he says. Singh says that several such posts in banks, PSUs and Central offices are lying vacant not necessarily because of lack of qualified people. According to norms, every office with staff strength up to 25 should have one Hindi typist and one translator. For offices with staff strength of 50 or more, there should be a senior translator too. There should, on top of it all, be a Hindi officer in offices with over 100 staff members. Clearly, few offices are complying with the norms. Singh says that a superficial review done by his office in major towns in five states of the region revealed that there are over 100 such posts lying vacant. A full-fledged review of all the states will surely reveal more such anomalies. "We can only pressurise but not force the offices concerned to comply with the norms," says Singh. The regional implementation office regularly sends reminders to the errant organisations." They always say they are working towards it," he confides. Singh's office carries out at least 12 inspections of offices every month. Apart from mounting assurances the concerned officers in the errant offices have not done much. The Department of Official Language, in a bid to encourage and motivate employees to learn and use Hindi, hands out awards every year. It has helped matters to a great extent as far as making Hindi popular among the employees is concerned. It is only in its use as the language of official transaction that problems arise. "The employees are very interested, the problem lies with the system," says Singh. The Northeast states fall into the 'C' category of states for which the target set by the Department in its 2000-01 annual programme is 55 per cent originating correspondence in Hindi, 20 per cent notings in Hindi, etc. With a series of poor shows in the preceding years, there is little hope of targets like these getting fulfilled. If the situation is dismal in the Northeast, the overall picture in the country is not too happy either. The annual programme for this year clearly says that while targets set for the last 31 years have been met to some extent a considerable amount of work is still being done in English. "Hindi is being used as a language of translation while English enjoys the pride of place in official work. This is a violation of the provisions of the Constitution," the programme points out.