'Al-chiki' on railway station sign-boards in tribal areas -Governance Now

'Al-chiki' on railway station sign-boards in tribal areas

Railways speaks the tribals' language in an effort to reach out to them

Sarthak Ray | September 2, 2010

In response to the Santhali Rajyabhasa Andolan (SRA), the Railway ministry has decided to use 'al-chiki' scripts alongwith languages already in use in all notice boards, signboards in tribal-dominated stations in Eastern India.

In a letter to the Akhil Bharatiya Santali Lekhak Sang (All India Santali Writers Association) on August 31 last, the Divisional Railway Manager(DRM-Rajyabhasa), Kharagpur had asked the SRA officials to furnish details of tribal-dominated stations in West Bengal to intiate the process, SRA General Secretary Ramesh Hansda told a press conference here.

SRA, which was spearheading movement for promotion of Santhali language for long, had recently appealed to Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee to use the script in writing the names of the railway stations alongwith the language already in use and make announcement about train schedule in Santhali in tribal-dominated stations.

A delegation of SRA led by Hansda had also met the opposition leader in West Bengal assembly and senior Trinamool Congress leader Partho Chatterjee and submitted a memorandum in this regard.

The DRM, Chakradharpur division of S E Rly had also received a letter from the Railway ministry in this connection but no step was initiated as yet, Hansda said.

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