In a bid to give a legal framework and teeth to various rules and regulations on giving primacy to Kannada, the S.R. Bannurmath-headed committee has submitted the draft of Kannada Language Comprehensive Development Bill, 2022, to the government. The Bill provides for penalty for violations of rules, with fines prescribed for various offences.
Enforcement directorate
Among other things, to enforce Kannada language in all government functioning, the committee has recommended the formation of a Language Enforcement Directorate. The directorate is to have committees at the State, district, and taluk levels. The State committee will have the president of KDA and the Chief Secretary, among others, in it.
The committee has come up with the draft after holding consultations for four months with various government departments and statutory bodies. The draft was submitted to Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J.C. Madhuswamy. According to sources in the KDA, it is expected to be tabled in the next legislature session.
Why the Bill and what it says
The Bill comes in the context of the complaint that though successive governments have issued various orders to give primacy to Kannada in administration and in other fields, none has succeeded in fully implementing them because they are not backed by a legislation.
The committee has recommended, among other things, Kannada as the only official language for presentation of all Bills in the legislature, for Ordinances to be passed by the Governor, for orders of the government and other government organisations, industries, and cooperative societies.
It also proposes making Kannada compulsory in programme brochures and banners of government, government-funded organisations. Kannada will have to be the main language in all name boards too.
The Bill emphasises on teaching functional Kannada language to higher, technical, and professional education students, who have not learnt Kannada as a language till SSLC.
It also says that first priority should be to Kannadigas in industrial establishments and says workshops should be held to teach Kannada to non-Kannada speakers in industrial establishments with more than 100 employees.
Penalties
According to the draft Bill, any negligence by an officer to implement the orders by the government about Kannada language development will be a punishable offence.
Similarly, any shopkeeper showing disregard for giving primacy to Kannada in name boards will be punishable. It will be a penalty of ₹5,000 for the first offence and ₹10,000 for the second offence. Later, offender is liable for a fine of ₹20,000, besides cancellation of licence. Disregard by a private company can lead to withholding privileges like tax exemption.
“There are many rules and regulations to develop Kannada language. But those are only on paper. This Bill will give legal strength to all those. I hope the government presents the Bill in the coming legislature session,” T.S. Nagabharana, chairman, Kannada Development Authority, told The Hindu.
