Name Plates on Roads, Shopping Malls in Bengaluru to Be in Kannada

The BBMP has been given a 15-day deadline to spread the word about the signboards to be changed to Kannada.

Earlier, many Hindi and English signboards in Karnataka were defaced in the “language war”.

(Photo Courtesy: The News Minute)

The Kannada Development Authority (KDA) has asked Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to ensure that the name boards of all shopping malls and commercial establishments within the Palike were written in Kannada.

The directive was given by KDA Chairman SG Siddaramaiah on Monday, while he was conducting a review meeting on the implementation of Kannada within the palike limits.

Also Read: Language War Escalates as Non-Kannada Signs Defaced in Bengaluru

The Chairman has set a 15-day deadline for the BBMP to spread the word and provide awareness on the matter, reports The Times of India.

In the meeting, Chairman Siddaramaiah cited the Sarojini Mahishi report, which says that any name board should have 60 percent Kannada and remaining 40 percent can be other languages.

Apart from the need to have Kannada on the name boards of commercial establishments, the committee also discussed about the names of several roads. The English names were more popular than the Kannada name, writers Siddalingaiah and Chandrashekar Patil reportedly raised it in the meeting.

For instance, the Basavanagudi main road was more popularly known as the Bull Temple Road. KDA Chairman has asked for Kannada names to be used while renaming such roads.

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Assuring the KDA members that the BBMP was indeed making efforts to popularise Kannada, BBMP Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad reportedly said that he will discuss the matter at the next council meeting.

According to The New Indian Express, KDA Chairman Siddaramaiah also asked BBMP to hold Kannada learning centres for pourakarmikas. The review meeting comes nearly a week after pro-Kannada groups defaced name boards of a few shops in a mall, for they were not in Kannada.

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"In a few cases the board had only Telugu, English and Hindi content; there is no Kannada at all. We brought this to the notice of corporation authorities and the police. As no action was taken, we have defaced the board with black ink," Karnataka Rakshana Vedike head Praveen Shetty told TOI.

(This piece was first published in The News Minute and has been republished with permission)

Also Read: Pro-Kannada Forums Deface English, Hindi Nameplates in B’luru

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